Roses & Thorns
by They That Know
Summary: B.is on a European summer political tour with a male-majority institute. She thinks that this could be her big break until suddenly her entire world is shattered and she finds herself being pulled tighter and tighter into a web with no exit in sight.
1. TakeOff

**Summary: Blossom Merangue is an American student on a summer-long tour of Europe with Cornelius Wilmington's Political Institute, and the first female to attend. B is hoping to take full advantage of this opportunity to make pre-mature political ties, but does not anticipate the Dean having a son, and certainly didn't expect what was to come. Will she be able to stay focus and accomplish what she came here for? And will she discover a revelation that **_**nobody **_**could have seen coming? AU, probably a little OOC at times.**

**A/N: My original plan was to write this story before I published it, but I would rather receive feedback for each chapter. I will update this as often as physically possible, and since it is nearing the end of the year, I will have PLENTY of free time. Also, BPOV= Blossom POV, BrPOV= Brick's POV, other POVs will be added as the story moves on. And now, enjoy!**

**Takeoff**

**BPOV**

"B!" sobs a usually chipper and over-excited voice, now wailing over dramatically coming towards me, full speed ahead.

"Cals, seriously, chill." I say, trying in vain to loosen the vice-grip my best friend on my chest.

"But what if one of us dies sometime over summer before we can see each other agai- OMG WHAT IF YOUR PLANE CRASHES OR MY PLANE CRASHES OR BOTH OF OUR PLANE CRASHES AND WE BOTH DIE!" She yells, trying to be rational, even though the only thing she's doing is drawing attention to herself and making it extremely tempting to slap her on the spot.

"Then I'd look you up in heaven and kick your butt for jinxing us, now please get off me and calm down before either I permanently lose feeling in my torso or you bust a blood vessel." I somehow mange to choke out.

We are in the middle of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Georgia, the world's busiest airport, and let me tell you, they don't call it that for no reason. The current situation is, I'm in the world's busiest airport with the world's loudest teenager. Not exactly an ideal combination. After she quieted down to the point where she only managed to arouse the suspicion of the closest fifty people to us, I let her talk again.

"But I'm not going to see you for the _whole _summer! If I weren't on my way to Cali, I would be committing suicide right now." She says, placing her small hand over her heart. She's also extremely hyperactive, so my fellow sophomores cleverly dubbed her 'The Hummingbird of Heather High' otherwise known as Hum, but to me, she's just Calla Grey Arnolds.

"Yeah sure, until you turned on E.T. and found some kind of hot new gossip." I say, rolling my eyes.

"B! I can't believe you'd think me so shallow! But speaking of hot new gossip, did you hear about Gaya's fling with Jason! They say she's pregnant and that's why she was out for eight months!" she says, whispering so animatedly clandestine you would think we were discussing the location of unknown nuclear weapons or something.

"Everyone knows she was on a foreign exchange trip to Holland, much like I'm going on right now." I say not even looking up as I settle comfortably in one of the plush grey waiting chairs as I waited for them to call my gate. At the time my mom was off in some gift shop and my dad was checking out an airport restaurant.

"Only you, B, would turn the ultimate adventure into a political thing." She says, rolling her mocha eyes at me, her flawless coffee skin not wasted on a group of guys not far from us.

"Well, sue me for caring more about my future than the hottest new fad that's going to be out the window by the time I get a chance to where it." I say for no doubt the billionth time.

"Whatever just make sure you are steady sending me photos every week, and updating me on you current _relationship _status." She says, winking at me.

"Yes, I'll be sure to keep you informed on my torrid affair with the Grecian Adonis I am bound to fall in love with." I say in a mocking tone.

"What?" she replies, dumbfounded. Everyone wonders how a girl who is more concerned with the next new Liplicious flavor than current natural disasters and vice versa would be best friends. Unfortunately, we don't either.

"Never mind. I'll make sure to send you pictures of Europe." I say noncommittally.

"And I'll make sure to tell you all about my Californian prince." She says wistfully "Right, you make sure to get on that." I finish sarcastically just as they call her gate to California.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye." She says, already in tears and the concierge didn't call her gate not two seconds ago.

"Temporarily, remember that Callie." I choke out again as she locks me in another bone crushing hug, finding myself close to tears as well.

"Come on Callie, we'll be late for our plane!" Ms. Arnolds says as she pried Callie away from me, "Goodbye, Bloss, we are going to miss you!" she says, as she gives me a hug in tears as well. I'm telling you, Callie's theatrics had to come from _somewhere_.

"I'll miss you guys too." I say, teary eyed as well now. When my parents come over and bid them farewell, they finally run to their plane, and I am left with nothing but my luggage, ADHD parents, and my thoughts.

I'm on my way to Europe for a tour of the sites with a very large group of males. I'm the first female there, and it isn't because they didn't allow girls to join, it's because girls just primarily aren't interested in touring some of the most romantic places in the world simply to talk politics. Well I'm a born diplomat, so I can't think of any reason to go besides to talk politics. Even though I'm very focused, I'm still a girl and I can't help but wonder what the boys will be like, and if there would be any hot ones.

Wondering about my first girl-free summer, switch on my kindle and pull out my MP3 player, settling in to read _TIMES _magazine.

**BrPOV**

**The Next Day**

"Ow, damn it Kent it is too early in the morning for all that!" I groan as I turn to the other side of the bed.

"Brick, it is nearly twelve o'clock, so I advise you to get up and get dressed. As you know we're leaving today." He says in the strange monotone voice of his.

"Come now, my boy, do you really want to be late for summer vacation?" He says, this time the slightest hint of humor slipping into his metronome like voice.

"Oh joy another 'summer' with those boring chaps." I groan once again. I live in Essex, England, the most scenic place on Earth, but it takes two hours to get to my father's building, where everyone involved goes to to meet up and dismiss. Lucky me, I've gone every year for the past five years.

"Well, I have heard that we have an American on our hands this year." He confides.

"Oh yes, a loud, rude, greasy, hypocritical 'Patriot' is exactly what the doctor ordered." I say, groaning for the third time in as many minutes.

"Yes, yes now tarry not, Brick, your father will meet with you in two hours so I beseech you to rise for the day, or should I say past noon?" he says, his voice returning to it's previous state as if the smirk that graced his features had never existed at all. _How does he do that?_

"Kent do you ever speak like someone from the twenty-first century?" I ask

"Now Brick, where's the fun in that?" he says with a wink and leaves the room. The young butler never fails to leave me in wonder. Everyone always finds it strange that the twenty-seven year old is so stern, but they hardly know him as I do. While I admit I have never heard him laugh, I have seen him smile, and you wouldn't believe how many cannot say the same.

_Well, I'd better go find Olana_, I thought, because the one thing I have seen from him, anger, is not something anyone would want an encore of.

"Brick."

"Dad."

"I would like to tell you a surprise."

"Like?"

"Well for the first time-"but he couldn't finish because our driver hit a ferret-sized bump in the road.

"Blast it Samuel, I'm a _politician_, I cannot afford to have PETA on my case for turning a ferret into road kill!" he said in mock exasperation to our driver. We had been driving for almost two hours and were nearly to the meeting center. At the time had been staring out the window, taking in the never ending majesty of the wide, green rolling hills.

"You were saying?"

"Oh yes you see, this year we have our first-" but I cut him off.

"American, I know dad. Kent told me." I say, uninterested.

"Yes, that too, but-" he was cut off again, but this time by mom. I can't tell you what they were talking about, not because it's a secret or anything, I just didn't care enough to listen. It was probably something important though.

Our bodyguards, Gavin and Sikes, escorted us to the Cornelius Wilmington Trading Center, good for clandestine conferences, high profile stock exchanges, and bar mitzvahs! The place and program is named for my great, great, great grandfather, Cornelius Wilmington (obviously), one of the greatest diplomats the world has ever known. The institute was lost when my grandfather joined the peace movement and became a hippie. One day, when Grampa Jo and Gramma Maggie were _really _high they decided to change their names to Raine and Moon and decided to change their last names to JoJo. I did say they were really high, didn't I?

Well, they had a son, or my dad, and decided it would be a wonderful idea to name their son Rainbow. So yes, originally my father's name was Rainbow JoJo. Now my father, being born with a naturally clear head, found his parents silly and infuriating, so the day he turned sixteen he walked right into the deed poll office and got his name changed to Raymond Jones, because while he thought his parents were ridiculous, he didn't want to _completely _cut them off, and changing his name completely felt like he'd be doing just that.

As I mingled in with he small group of people that were there, my friend Mitch paraded over to me. Wearing his favorite black shirt and tussled brown hair everyone wonders how in the world he got in. truth is, the guy's a genius, just not in the conventional way.

"Hey dude, did you here the rumor? We're supposed to get this greasy, fat American wise arse." He says in the way only he can.

"Yes, I heard we were getting an American." I reply, hardly interested. About twenty minutes later with the fat, greasy American nowhere in sight, the orientation meeting began.

**BPOV**

I was kind of late for orientation because of some confusion that went on, like waking up really late cause the alarm clock you brought is about five hours late, you come very close to being arrested for driving erratically because you forgot what side of the road you're supposed to be on, and end up having to stop for directions five times because you don't speak 'cockney'. I tried to come in very quiet so I didn't interrupt the meeting so I came in quietly though the back door and went to take a seat. Unfortunately, nobody was paying a hint of attention to the person speaking so the second I came in all heads snapped towards me. Even the speaker stopped talking.

I gasped when I realized something. I already knew I was going to be the only girl there, but when I was met first hand by a sea of guys it made my breath catch in my throat, and Blossom Aurelia Merangue does _not _get shy. I quickly took a seat, but I knew all the boys were still watching me.

"Ms. Merangue, it's a pleasure to have you here," a voice calls to me over the microphone that I recognize to be that of Mr. Jones, "we welcome you to The Cornelius Wilmington Political Institute and hope you enjoy your summer with us." He finished, making a wide gesture around the room on the word 'us'. I nod and take a seat and pick up the schedules, water bottles, I.D., and etc. _This ought to be good._

**BrPOV**

As Professor Blake descended into his sermon-like orientation, I felt myself start to doze. Right as I was about to find comfort in sleep, I heard a noise that woke me from my strange mental state. The doors opened and I turned my head to see who dared interrupt Blake's preaching when a face I had not been expecting to see appeared like an apparition at the threshold.

The most gorgeous girl I had ever seen passed through the doors and paused when she realized what she was interrupting, as if it mattered compared to her. She had fiery auburn hair, a face that could most certainly rival an angel, deep eyes the color of a pink like that of a sunset, and a natural grace about her. Her eyes twinkled with the sparkle only intelligence can give and she held her self in a way that only a true leader of men can. All in all, she was pretty damn hot.

I took note I definitely wasn't the only one appreciating her beauty- and her very nice arse. In fact, I noted many were starting to salivate and it appeared as though Tony Howard had forgotten how to breathe. I check myself to see if I my mouth was watering as well, and it had. _My God, who is this girl? _

"Bloody Hell." I hear Mitch whisper; his eyes glued to her long legs, which under her pink sundress seemed to go on for miles.

"…Ms. Merangue..." unfortunately that's all I caught because I was completely tuned out, but I did manage to hear that part. Funny, Lemon Meringue is my favorite pie.


	2. Roomies

**Disclaimer: My bad, I totally forgot about that, so here's my disclaimer: If the PGs were mine, you'd know already because I would brag about it. So they aren't.**

**A/N: OH MY GOD! I SOO WASN'T EXPECTING ALL THE NICE REVIEWS! YOU GUYS ARE SOOO AWESOME! Sorry, had to get that out. That last chapter was sucky, I realized when I read it, and so I apologize. I promise this one will be better. I am also super sorry for keeping you guys waiting as I had finals this week and there was a really bad mix up concerning my password (I forgot it) but you guys are seriously my favorite people right now. The new POV belongs to Charlie, an OC that will come along in a second. The plan is to do a new OC every chapter. Also, as a heads up, there will **_**not **_**be any greens or blues in this book, but remember this is a series, so you don't have to worry about not meeting them. Since this A/N is kind of long I'm going to save the rest of my remarks for the end of this passage. And now, enjoy!**

**Roomies**

**BPOV**

Well, after the strange encounter in the large auditorium we were given a room to sleep in before we take off to the wonderful world of historical English politics. Even though I'm the only girl in the program I still sleep on the same level with the rest of the boys, but they drew the line at having a roommate. I wasn't complaining, although it bothered me to be on a floor flooding with guys. Hopefully these foreign (or does being in their country make _me_ the foreigner?) boys are different from American boys, but I highly doubt it. From my experience, most boys, no matter where they're from, see tail where they should see a girl, but hey, who am I to judge?

Throughout the night boys were calling my phone. Sometimes they would try to ask me out, others would make lewd comments, and some just did the psycho-stalker thing and breathed heavy over the receiver, all of which I hung up on. I did not come here to get a boyfriend, however tempting it maybe, and certainly one that doesn't even have the guts to talk to me in person rather than call me over the phone.

Then, at sometime around eight there was a knock on the door. I looked out the peephole. There was a woman I hadn't seen before.

"Ma'am, may I please see your badge?" I say as mannerly as possible.

"Sure." She says, holding up her I.D. to the peephole. Every single person in the program is required to wear identical badges at all times and you are not to let _anyone_, not even someone you know, into the room without presenting themselves first.

After examining her badge through the door and comparing it to mine I let her in. what I didn't see was that there was someone that came in behind her.

"Ma'am, I don't mean to be rude, but it's getting kind of late and I should get to bed so I don't wanna beat around the bush. What would be the purpose of your visit, Ms. Carmichael?" I ask, recalling her name from her badge.

"We don't mean to disturb you-" she started, but I cut her off.

"We?" I say noticing she had come in alone.

"Yes, Me and Charlie Topherton. He just arrived and because there is _absolutely _no more room and you have two spare beds we have been forced to group him with you. I hope you won't find this too disturbing, seeing as this is only for the night and you'll have every other room you receive to yourself." She pleaded with me with a look of desperation.

The guy still hadn't come in yet so I didn't know what he looked like. I knew the lady was in trouble and was trying hard not to leave him out in a hall somewhere so I decided to have mercy on them both. Anyways, what's the worst that can happen during one night alone in a room with a total stranger, not to mention that stranger is a boy? In case you're answering that in your mind, it was rhetorical.

And then Charlie walked in.

_Crap._

**CPOV**

I got here a little late, but can you blame me? I came got here from _a lot _of stopover flights. Turns out, Melbourne is a lot farther from Essex than we, as in my mum and I, thought it was, so I ended up being _really _late. All the beds in all the rooms were taken when I got there and I sure as heck wasn't about to share one or sleep on the floor. It was then that my guide, Ms. Carmichael, and I were approached by this really old guy.

"Oh, Mr. Blake, could you help us? We're looking for a place to stay in for the night." She says in a earnest way. Something told me she was going to be in _serious _trouble if I didn't get a nice place to sleep in for the night. It was at that time that Mr. Blake dropped a serious bomb.

"Oh, we have a room with two empty beds but it's occupied by Merangue." He said dejectedly.

"Great, so what's the issue with his room?" she asked warily

"Her, Ms. Carmichael, for the first time _ever, _her." He said, eyebrow raised.

"What's her first name, Lemon? " Ms. Carmichael laughed.

"No, Ms. Carmichael, well actually I don't know. The only name the only first name we received for Ms. Merangue was the letter 'B' but we were very desperate for someone of the female variety so we didn't question it." He said honestly.

"Wait, wait, wait, so you mean to tell me that this girl's name is B. Merangue and nobody here knows here full first name?" she said incredulously.

"That is exactly what I'm saying, Melinda. Now, what do you think about Topherton here staying in Merangue's room for the night?" he asked

"Well, since it's just for the night I guess it would be alright." She said uncertainly. By now about four questions where formulating in my head: Why had she not told anyone her first name, What _is_ her first name, What does she look like, and How is she going to feel about some stranger dude staying in her room that could be a rapist (not that I am one) or thief or something? Do they even care about whether or not she wanted me in her room? Do they care about whether or not_ I_ wanted to be in her room? Well, I decided I was going to keep myself neutral 'til I see Ms. Merangue for myself.

Whatever I had been expecting, it sure as heck wasn't this. Or her, to be exact. When we turned the corner to her room, I admit I had expected some geeky girl or someone who was very yellow like her name. Well, she wasn't any of those things. When Ms. Carmichael knocked on her door and they went through protocol and she opened the door, I turned around and hid on the other side of the intersecting hallway so she could not see me.

She reminded me of a flame, the prettiest flame I'd ever seen for that matter, with her long red hair and pretty features. When she came to the door she had been wearing a pink floral sundress and red wedge sandals with a white head band with a large red bow on it. She is most definitely the prettiest girl I'd ever known, not that I'd ever tell her that. I hear Ms. Carmichael beckon me in I thank god for choosing to wear my black hoodie today and pulled it low over my face as I walked in.

**BPOV**

I didn't know if I should be scared or happy about the guy that walked in. tousled blond curls peeked out from underneath a black hoodie and stormy grey eyes peeked out at me from beneath. Not knowing what to do, I stuck my hand out for him to shake.

"Nice to meet ya Charlie." I say with my hand out. I'm a bit of a 'Southern Belle' you might say, born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He stared at my hand like it was a foreign object. He blinked a bit, apparently snapping out of whatever stupor he'd been in and shook my hand. I let out a silent sigh of relief. I had no idea where he was from so I didn't know how he was going to react to my handshake.

'Same here, B." he said as he shook my hand. I wasn't sure if my brain was playing tricks on me or whatever, but it almost sounded like he was nervous. I shook my head to clear the thought away, but then another one arose. _How'd he know my name? _I wondered. I was glad I hadn't said anything though; because it occurred to me she'd probably told him. Well, she told him how much of my name she knew.

"Make yourself comfortable, I'm just going to go take a shower and whatnot. After that, bathroom's all yours." I said, walking over to my bed. I went into my cosmetics bag and pulled out all the stuff I was going to need like body wash, toothpaste, deodorant, face cleanser, body spritz, underclothes and the like. I heard him roll his stuff in as I walked to the bathroom and turned the water on. I had a feeling he wasn't going to try anything but I locked the bathroom door all the same.

After bathing, washing face and elsewhere, brushing teeth, and body spraying I finally left the bathroom. I put on my pink spaghetti strap tank top and red short shorts. I slipped on a robe and some fuzzy shin-length socks and slipped into the room. I was met by the sight of Charlie being completely taken with last week's episode of _Desperate Housewives_, which just happens to be my favorite show. At the time I came in Susan was struggling against the crazy red haired lady that was trying to kill that guy for killing her sister. Without his hoodie on I got a better look at him. He was quite cute with his kaki crew capris and striped blue shirt with matching white Nikes. His messy blonde mop of curls and stunning grey eyes made me just thank god it was me in this situation and not Callie. I plopped down next to him on the bed.

"What'd I miss?" I ask him, snapping him out of his drama-induced stupor.

"Pardon?" he asked turning to me.

"Never mind, I'll find out later. I just never pictured you a _DH _kinda guy." I say having noticed the guy had been tied up and just broke free.

"Ughh, I-I umm, it-it was just in- I mean on and I tuned on- I mean-" he babbled obviously embarrassed to be caught watching a show that is considered estrogen powered.

"Oh, it's alright. I was just messing with you." I said laughing.

"Well, I'm glad you find it humorous to laugh at my expense." He huffed, crossing his slightly built arms over his chest, which only succeeded in making me laugh harder.

"So how'd you come across this show?" I asked once I caught my breath.

"When I turned on the T.V. it was already on and I started to get into it. By the way, what's the name of this show?" he asked

"You don't have _Desperate Housewives_ in…" I trailed off thinking he'd take the hint, as he did.

"Australia, and yes we do, I just never watch it." He shrugged.

"Well, it's my favorite show." I say.

"Gosh, I hadn't noticed." He says, accompanied with an eye roll.

"Hey watch it, Mr. or I'll go Annie on you." I punch him and glare playfully.

"What does that mean? Also, you can't hit people, your little knuckles hurt too much." He said, rubbing his arm.

"Wimp, and Annie was the crazy lady red haired lady that tried to kill that guy."

"Oh, and what are you going to do, huh? Force me to eat vegemite*?" he said, retching at the thought.

"I would if I knew what that is." I say absolutely clueless.

"And you should thank god that you don't and never speak of it again." He said.

"Ookaay? I said, and the banter just continued from there. It was well into the night and we messed around talking and watching T.V. and laughing. By the time we looked up it was ten o'clock and within five minutes he was out cold. I of course, couldn't sleep, which worked pretty well because it was only about five o'clock back home so I called my friend Taneeka, seeing as calling Callie wouldn't work because she always takes a nap at 2 and it was about that time where she was according to the world clock on my cell phone.

"Hey girl." I say.

"Yo."One of my best friends replies. Taneeka is probably the most ghetto girl in our school but she's also the smartest, and she makes sure everyone knows both. Another strange pairing, but I've been old I can find a friend in most people. The good thing about us is that we can talk politics. At that point we were having a riveting debate on death of Osama Bin Laden. I finally felt sleep's tug sometime during the midnight hour after heatedly hanging up with Taneeka for the billionth time. Tomorrow London comes. Looking over at Charlie from my bed I smiled at my new little brother and best friend.

**Wow, that was one lame filler chapter. The next one I promise you you'll see some BlxBr action. Shout out to: 1000GreenSun, purplepunk8005, PPGXRRB-luv, and Cutie Pie for the reviews. School's over so I will be poppin up chapters like crazy. Thanks for reading!**

**Yours Truly,**

**Songbird213**


	3. The Beginning of Strange

**A/N: Okay, I know this chapter is ridiculously late in coming, mainly because I recently got a job (which I was surprised to find was legal for my age), there was a death in the family so I had to go to the funeral (at which one my drama teacher's turned up to, weird), and then I went to Tennessee for the National Jr. Beta Convention and this chapter required some research, which I lost, then found, then lost again, then found again, so enjoy!**

**Day 1**

**Part 1:**

**The Beginning of Strange**

**BPOV**

Well, to day is the day. Today we head off to explore the wonderful world of politics and the history thereof. I honestly can't think of a time that I've been happier than I am right now. I mean, yeah I knew I was going to be touring Europe but the reality of it all just hit me. It's seven in the morning and my mp3 alarm clock just went off. It picks a random song from my iPod and blares it to wake me up. I was roused this morning by 'Good Life' by OneRepublic. Ironic, isn't it? While it's useful I sometimes resent it for using my favorite songs against me. Whoever invented this thing is a very, very sick person. A genius, but still very, very sick.

Charlie didn't even seem to notice. I got up and tried shaking him. Nothing. Not even a groan or a twitch. I screamed in his ear, slapped him, put my iPod in his ear and turned it up to the max and still nothing. I was stumped and had resigned to just leave him here and tell the counselor people that they could wake him up, that is until I had a brilliant, slightly evil, idea.

**CPOV**

I was having a nightmare about Mr. Perkins (Satan under the guise of a short, chubby, bitter, balding man in his late forties. Brilliant, right?) strapping me to a chair in his horrendous al/trig (algebra/trigonometry) classroom and forcing me to eat Vegemite. I cursed myself for even having mentioned it to Bea last night. Now my subconscious was making me pay for it. I didn't have a voice so I couldn't even call for help.

Right as he was giving me the same evil grin he gives us when we're about to do some ridiculous project his sadistic mind came up with and the evil substance was about to make contact with my mouth something strange happened. The whole room started to literally flood. I was wondering if I was having one of those crazy Inception dreams again when I felt I was being yanked from my dream. I woke up realizing I had been showered in freezing water.

"Ahh!" a voice sreamed. Oh wait, that was me. Wow, it's like having an outer body experience. And then I was thrown back into my body and realized why I had been yelling.

"God, what the devil!" I said, freezing to the marrow of my bones from cold water.

"Sorry Char but there was nothing else I could do but leave you here to fendyou're your self, and what kind of friend would I be if I did that?" a girl said innocently while holding a now empty plastic bottle with CWM on it with some kind of coat of arms. It took me a second to remember who she was.

"Yeah, some friend." I muttered while pulling the wet covers off my body.

"Oh, don't grumble to yourself. I'm letting you have the first shower this morning, so hurry up. You're already making me late." She said, walking away from me. Ah, ah, ah, not so fast.

"What the heck!" she exclaims at my pillow ambush.

"How's tha-" I don't finish because she whacks me over the head with another one. Before we know it we're in an all-out pillow war.

**BPOV**

About five minutes after Charlie unnecessarily smacked me with a pillow I called a truce. As for why I fought back in the first place, I couldn't let him get way with it. Our room looked a hot mess, and the beds were completely trashed. To say it looked like a war zone wouldn't do the room justice. We'd broken a lamp, cracked a mirror, gotten the AC feather- clogged, and had managed to knock over every free-standing piece of furniture in the room. We examined the damage. Miraculously, nothing belonging to either of us had been damaged or strewn about.

"We did all this with _pillows?_" Charlie said, breaking the silence.

"I didn't even think it was possible to leave a whole room in complete disarray in the time span of five minutes. And we didn't mess up any of our own stuff." I said, still in disbelief.

"I imagine Room Service is going to really love us, aren't they?" he jokes.

"I'm sure. With this room looking like it does I wouldn't be surprised if they find some way to spit in our water when we eat breakfast." I say.

"People actually do that?" he says, making a face.

"Um, yes."

"Well then, I'll just have to be sure to get orange juice." He says with me now in a fit of laughing. Through my teary eyes I manage to catch sight of the one thing that we didn't pulverize- the clock.

"Oh crap, it's late! Get your butt in the bathroom right now! I'm trying to be nice because it's going to take me awhile, so go!" I say, shoving him towards the bathroom.

"Alright, alright, sheesh. Just let me get my clothes. Unless of course-" I cut him off with a slap on the back of the head before he finished whatever lewd comment he was about to make. He got his stuff. You know, clothes, underwear, Axe, teeth stuff, etc.

"Now go, before I change my mind." I say and he slips into the bathroom without another word.

**CPOV**

After Bea (As in Bee, if you were wondering) got ready, which took all of forty-five minutes, she stepped out the bathroom. She wore a pink v-neck t-shirt with a pair of blue and pink checkered converses that went up to her knee caps and stone washed skinny jeans. She also happened to be wearing the converses on her shirt, which is funny because that never happens.

"So you must really like pink." I say

"Oh?" she says, raising a fiery red eyebrow

"Yeah, I mean, you wear pink all the time." I say

"Well, I guess I just really like pink. It's kind of my thing, you know?" I couldn't help but feel she wasn't telling me everything, but I went along with it.

"Yeah, I guess I do." Not a clue.

"You don't look so bad yourself." She says, causing me to look at my own green t-shirt with the words 'I Don't Have Friends, Only Servants' in large white letters and bleached jean shorts and that white stone chocker that all surfers seem to have. Oh, and some black and green Vans.

"Sure." Figuring she was being sarcastic.

"What?" confused

"Nothing." Then she hit me again.

"What was that for?"

"For not making any sense."

"You're mean."

"So?"

Not long after I'm telling her about my dream and she's calling me a wuss and laughing at me. And my eyes only wandered, like, twice. Maybe Charlie Topherton is turning over a new leaf.

**BrPOV**

Another thing about Mitch that's contrary to popular belief, he's actually an OCD neat freak. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. Even though people call him gross, he still does crazy stuff. He wouldn't hesitate to kill me if I told anyone, but he irons _everything_. When he had to wear a suit for 5th grade graduation he ironed his hankie, he irons his socks, he irons his collection of different styled black t-shirts, he even irons his _nightclothes_. The only person I know who irons nightclothes is my Grandmamma, and half the time it's because she can't tell the difference between day clothes and nightclothes.

So he made sure that me and Jeff -his name being Geoffrey but he doesn't like that spelling- had the room spotless. We're also sworn into secrecy, and his exact words for if we broke his rule was, 'I know where you live and I can find out when you are asleep', so I knew better then to cross him.

We are right now sitting at one of the dozens of black circular that populate our café (really it's a cafeteria but café sounds fancier) and Mitch is telling the story of a food fight in April even though we both know that the thought of getting into a food fight and ruining his clothes would be enough to put him in cardiac arrest. Right when all newcomers were officially tardy, milady walked in. With Charlie. What the ?

They're laughing and her smile is definitely other worldly. How in the world did Charlie manage to move in on the only girl here that fast? He wasn't even here yesterday! Yeah he's the resident playboy here, but that really isn't even fair. When they come in there's a hush and everyone turns to stare at them. After about five seconds, the girl (I still don't know her name) smiled and said,

"Take a picture, people." Which spurred a snort out of Charlie. At which point he sees us and waves her over in our direction. Charlie's one of best friends, but I really hate him sometimes. Like now.

"Hello!" he says sitting down and she sits down next to him. Scattered greetings comefrom around the table. Lady speaks up.

"Hey ya'll, my name is Bea." She says.

"Bea, like the name Bea?" Mitch-the-less-than-bright-occasionally asks.

"Sure." She says. Doesn't sound like a yes to me but I don't question it. We went around the table with names.

"My name's Mitchell, but you can call me Mitch."

"I'm Jeff."

"Just Jeff?"

"He doesn't like the name Geoffrey." Contributes Mitch.

"Ok then. I guess I'll just have to call you Jay."

"Right, then."

"And you?" she says. I then realize she's talking to me.

"Brick." I say. God I can be a bloody idiot at times.

"Brick, huh?" she says.

"Uh, huh." I say. I have to restrain my hand from slapping my self.

"My puppy's name is Brick. He's a German Shepherd and he's probably the friendliest dog you'd ever meet." She says with a smile. So I have the same name as her beloved pet. I'm pretty sure that's a good thing. Charlie: 1, Brick: 1.

We finish breakfast and my dad comes on stage to give us yet _another _welcome and the itinerary.

"Good Morning, students. I will make this short, seeing as you all will depart this morning. I say you all because this year I will not be making the trip with you," collective gasp, "therefore Professor Blake will be your Overseer." Collective groan, "you will spend now, as in Monday, through Friday of every week politically active. Almost like a school field trip, minus the pressure of school. We want you to feel relaxed.

For the next two weeks we will be here, in England, before we move on to France. Amongst your papers there is a detailed syllabus. It is here you will find the complete list of what you'll be doing here. You will get a new one for every country we tour. As you already know, we will be traveling England, France, Italy, and Greece. After Greece we will take a two day cruise back to Italy, at which point we will head back to England for dismissal. Does anyone have any questions and or concerns?" Whatever questions they had, no one cared enough to ask.

A bit later we were on a _Top Flight _charter bus and were being seated. We'd already packed the luggage onto the bus and were getting seating arrangements. Because Pro. Blake was here instead of dear old dad our seating arrangements were permanent, so we sit wherever we so choose now but those seats are permanent. I just know Mitch is going to sit by me, Jeff (or Jay) is going to sit with some other person like Matt and Charlie is going to sit with Bea. Lovely.

As I take a window seat and wait for Mitch, a foreign body seats themselves next to me.

"Hi." She says simply as she moves in. Maybe there are such things as miracles. Or maybe just happy accidents.

**BPOV**

So far I've met about four boys, including Charlie. There is a messy brown haired boy who looks like he tries entirely too hard to look like he doesn't try hard at anything, a quiet one who was also brown haired but had more of a nice guy vibe with a button up blue shirt, and then there was the guy that definitely took the cake. Heck, he took the whole dang store.

Sure there were a couple red heads in the room, but he was an _actual _red head. His hair was a rusty crimson even darker then mine and it hung down his back in a ponytail old timey-style. He wore a backwards turned baseball cap with some logo on it that looked like a team insignia that I didn't recognize, a red and white baseball jersey over a blood red t-shirt, white and red cargos, and red converses. This guy definitely has an eye for fashion.

It helped that he was really, really hot of course.

I'm sitting next to him right now. I don't know what the heck possessed me to come over and plant my butt in next to him, and I was sure he'd be like, 'Umm, weirdo who compares me to canines, I actually had someone to sit next to. Well actually, it doesn't matter, just move.', but he hasn't told me to move yet. Maybe he's just too nice, I mean, he had a shocked look on his face when I came and sat down.

Anyways, I don't know if he wants me to take a hint and leave or something because he hasn't said a word to me since I sat down. Well, I don't blame him. Did I mention that I called the boy a dog? Well, not in so many words. I said he had the same name as my puppy Brick (which he does, I didn't lie) and then in a sorry attempt to save myself I told him Brick was nice, or something. What was that? What the heck is wrong with me. Also, did you know his eyes are so dark they're actually red? Of course you wouldn't know, I didn't tell you, duh! Whoa, I think he actually just spoke to me.

"Where are you from?" he asks me with his strangely intense red eyes.

"Huh?" stupid.

"I said where are you from?" he asks again patiently.

"Atlanta. Georgia." wow, semi-coherent words.

"Cool. What's it like there?" general curiosity. No tell-off yet.

"Hot. Muggy. Hot." Pathetic attempt towards something resembling comedy.

Adorable chuckle. "Sounds fun." Actual funny sarcasm.

"No kidding. So where are you from?" better, better.

"Here. I've been going on these trips as long as I can remember." simply

"But I thought this was freshman year?" missing something that probably should have been obvious at that point.

"Let me clarify. Hi I'm Brick Jones." Hold out hand.

Taking moment for brief cloud of stupidity to clear up, "Ohh, you're dad is Dr. Jones." Thank you, Cap'n Obvious.

"Yeah. My dad wanted me to have the experience so I've been on this tour about five times."

"Since you were ten?" wow, she can subtract!

"Yeah, and it really is as fun as it looks. Well, for us I mean. When I went I was miserable."

"Why?"

"Well it's becau-"

"I just had an idea!" rudely interrupted. Gosh, I could be annoying orange. I go in my black messenger bag and fish out a sheet of paper and a purple pen. "We can make a list." God, what is this, the Martha Stewart Show?

"Sure." Going along with it.

**The Pre-Trip Pros and Cons**

**By: **_Brick Jones_

**Co-author: B. Merangue**

_I knew Bea wasn't your name!___**Oops, didn't mean to write that.**

**Pros **

_You get to see where the magic happens._** Disney World. **_Right._

_Opens the doors to many career options. _**Umm, isn't that what Career Day is for? **_Pardon? _**Never mind.**

_You can meet many world leaders in the process._** Obama! **_Not exactly who I had in mind, but why not?_

_Teaches you about mistakes people have made in the past so that you don't make them in the future. _**History Channel! **_Actually, yeah, like a living history channel._

_You get a front row seat to some of the most beautiful and historic places in the world. _**Agreed.**

_One word:__Greece. _**Two words: Athenian Pizza**

**Cons**

_You have to listen to old guys drone on about the history of politics and things you learned in year three. _**Yeah that could be a problem. What's year three?**

_And they expect you to stay awake._** Wow, I hope nobody here is a narcoleptic. **_Year three is your third year of school. _**Oh. **_What do you call it?_** Third grade. **_Oh._

_Can be boring at times. _**No kidding.**

_Female stalkers._** No comment.**

_The food can be gross at times._** Man vs. Food?**

_One word:__Homework. _**You're joking. **_Two words: You Wish_

Brick likes the list. I'm glad he does, because I think all it succeeds in doing is making me look beyond idiotic. I mean really, Disney world? What the heck is wrong with me? He must be messed up to find company with me, because I'm a complete head case. Sure, I hang with Charlie too, and Callie –who, come to think of it, would be perfect for Charlie- as well, but I already _know _they're both psycho. Callie, probably the most out of the bunch of us. Brick, though, he seems like a decent guy. Then, you know, so did John Wilkes Booth. Not that I'm calling him an assassinator that'll kill Obama, or Stephen Cameron or whatever.

**BrPOV**

B. (not Bea) had an idea to make a list, which you could say we bonded over. Turns out, she's really funny. Smart, pretty, nice, great sense of humor, it's like the lists goes on and on with this girl. And she sat with me and not Charlie, Mr. Lady Killer. Charlie: 1, Brick: 2. the plan as of right now is to find out what the 'B.' means. Her name can't be that bad.

Not necessarily in that order. You know what the good things about plans are? They can be edited, turned into graphic organizers, and burned and denied if necessary. The hard part, implementing said plan.

We finally made it to our first destination, The Houses of Parliament, without a moment to spare. When we got out the bus and looked around. It's sunny, for once. Good things keep happening to me today. We got off the bus and they partnered us up randomly. I ended up with Matt. And the lucky streak ends. And she ends up with Charlie. I can assure you, I'm less than ecstatic at the moment. We enter the through the Royal Entrance at Victoria Tower and enter the Royal Robing Room, where the tour starts.

As many times as I've been on this trip, and as many times my dad has had to drag me to work with him because my mum was off doing some middle-east peace talk thing, (in case you were wondering, she's one of our country's Saudi Arabian/Tunisian Ambassadors) I've never failed to be amazed by the place.

_**FLASHBACK**_

_Eight Years Ago_

"_Brick. Brick! Hello, Earth to Brick!" Daddy says as he snaps me out of staring at my surroundings._

"_Yes." I say, watching the big group of gray and black flooding through the atrium towards the magic doors. It looks just like the school of fish in the video Ms. Myrtle showed us today in class, only not so many colors._

"_Ms. Laurel is going to take you into that room right there to watch movies and play games while I'm working. I want you to do everything she tells you to unless me or mommy have told you not to and be a good boy, alright?" he says, taking my chin in his hand and looking into my red eyes with his grey ones._

"_Yes daddy." I say, nodding my head. My hair is already to my shoulders and is straighter than my mommy's silk shirts. He smiles and kisses my forehead._

"_Good boy. I love you."_

"_I love you too daddy," I say as a tall, pretty lady with short, red hair like mine comes toward me._

"'_Ello, Brick. My name is Ms. Laurel and you are going to be with me for a little while, mate, alright?" she says with a nice smile. She smells just like my grandmum's favorite coffee._

"_Okay." I say as she takes my hand._

"_Bye, dad," I say as me and Ms. Laurel are walking away._

"_Bye, son," Dad says as he goes to walk in with his friend Mr. John. I turn to go with Ms. Laurel and I can hear _The Little Rascals_ playing on the telly._

_**END OF FLASHBACK**_

At that time we had been in the Central Lobby, which is shaped like an octagon. Ms. Laurel is actually a tour guide, not a baby sitter, but she always has the sessions off so she'd watch me for my dad when he needed her to. She did it for free, too, because my dad is a well known and well liked for his involvement in the community. He stopped needing her services a while ago, but she still considers me her son. I took to calling her Aunt El, because it was just easier to say, and she is like an aunt, to me. Oh, and speak of the devil, here she comes now.

"Brick!" she calls, coming towards me. It's twelve o' clock, I should have known she's be going on her lunch break right about now. She has me in a large hug. For how skinny she is, she has a surprisingly tight grip. I have about three inches on her now.

"Hi Aunt El," I squeeze out as she cracks my ribs. Blast, they just healed from my last visit!

"Oh, Brick, it's so wonderful to see you! Such a strapping young lad you've become! You've grown so much in the past few months, I hardly recognized you! Hitched along for the ride again, I see." She says in her lilting voice.

"No, this time I'm with the group." I inform her.

"Truly?" she says unbelievingly. I make a face at her accidental attack on my character.

"Oh, now don't be cross with me. I only meant that you've gotten so old!" she says, nudging my chin, "I see you're with the motley crew again. All boys again? I told your father-" she stops, my guess is she's caught sight of B. Actually, with all these guys she's rather hard to miss with her auburn hair. She's rather like a torch, a really pretty torch. And she was laughing with Charlie at something he said.

"Oh my," she whispers, "She's a pretty one, isn't she?" she whispers conspiratorially .

"I guess so," I say, not wanting to let too much leak.

"Don't give me that, I can tell you're taken with the girl. My little boy's smitten!" she whispers a little too loudly.

"Aunt El, please, why don't you announce it to all of Westminster?" I say, shush her.

"Does that mean it's true then," you can practically _hear _what I just said flying over her head, but I don't respond to her question (which was more like a statement anyway), "It is! Even when you were courtin'-" I cut her off.

"Please, Aunt El, nobody says 'courting' anymore. In fact, half of the population doesn't even know what that means."

" Even when you were courtin that little girl Emma-"

"Emily."

"Yes, yes, but the point is you never looked at Agnes-"

"Emma!"

"I thought you said her name was Emily,"

"So you botched her name on purpose!"

"_The point is _you never looked at Emily the way you look at Ms. Cherry over there," she says, watching B in a way that was rather obvious.

"Well Ms. Cherry is different from Emily."

"So what's missy's na- Charlie!" she exclaims out of nowhere, having seen Charlie and giving him a signature boa constrictor hug. I met Charlie during one of Aunt El's down low kid watching services, specially for Charlie and me. His dad and my dad are close and usually on the same side of the arguments, and Charlie's granddad is in the House of Lords. When Charlie's parents divorced he went to go live with his mum in Australia, but whenever he comes to the U.K. we mess around together. While me and Mitch are tight, me and Charlie are like brothers. And if you have a brother then you know what I'm talking about when I say he can really piss me off at times. Like when he's chatting it up with the girl that I like. A lot.

Right now I'm watching Aunt El squeeze the crap out of him and talk his ear off and I can't help but laugh. All it takes is Aunt El to knock a bloke down a notch.

**CPOV**

Me and Bea were just minding our own business, guessing what kind of stone was used in the Atrium, she telling me about the American National Cathedral, me telling her about the nuns at a Catholic school I had a stint in.

"I'm serious, Sister Dorothy really had it in for me, old bat. Every time somebody put a tack in her chair or spiked her coffee or talked, it was me. If I stayed one more week there, I swear my knuckles would be permanently deformed by that demonic ruler of hers-" I was cut off mid-sentence when Aunt El shrieked my name and caught me in her vice-grip. If I ever need a body guard, I'm going to make sure I call her first. Or Sister Dorothy. Nah, she'd poison my fish and chips. I meant it when I said she _really _hates me.

"Charlie!" she says. Her super straight red hair is cut in a v-shape and her brown eyes have smile crinkles. She's really tall, me and her are about the same height. She's also really skinny, but don't let her fool you. Before she was a tour guide for Westminster, she was a security guard.

"Aunt El, it's awesome to see you too, but I really do need to use my lungs." I manage.

"Sorry, love. My, how you and Brick have grown! I almost didn't recognize my boys, but how can you not recognize Brick's rusty head? I keep telling that boy that if he wants to get a decent girl he needs to cut that hair of his. I'm afraid that the boy thinks he's Sampson." She says in the way only Aunt El can. Well, she's not my actual aunt, but I've called her that long as I can remember. Brick, too. Our dads are best mates. It kind of reminds me of the first time I met Brick in Aunt El's Notorious Game Room. We call it notorious because it's decked out. The only people who know about it are Brick, Aunt El, and me. Oh no, I'm getting a flash back. Great.

_**FLASHBACK**_

_Eight Years Ago_

"_But Dad, why can't I stay with Mummy?" I whine_

"_I already told you Charlie, Mummy's not here. Since Mummy's not here and I have to take care of business, you're going to stay with Ms. Laurel." Dad says like he's tired._

_Then a lady starts walking over to me. She has short, straight red hair and tan skin. And she's really tall. I frown. She looks like a pencil. Her black heels clack against the stone floor just like Mummy's do. She's wearing a boring looking outfit that a bunch of other people are wearing. _

"'_Ello Charlie." She bends down and smiles at me. She looks nice._

"_Hi." Her brown eyes look almost like my mum's._

"_You're going to be coming with me for a little while, Charlie, while you're dad's working. You and me, we're going be the best of chums! Come now." She says. I guess she's kinda okay. I turned around to tell Dad bye, but he's already gone. All the sudden I want to cry, but I don't. Like dad says, Topherton men do not cry in public. So I walk into a room with Ms.- oops, I forgot._

"_What's you're name again?" I ask, looking up at her._

"_Just call me Aunt Laurel."_

"_Aunt El?"_

"_Sure Charlie, Aunt El." She says, smiling. We walk into the room. There are board games, video games, toy games, games, games, games!_

"_Aunt El?" I ask_

"_Yes, Charlie."_

"_Am I dead?" I ask. I must be, because this looks a lot like heaven._

"_I should hope not." She says_

"_Why not?"_

"_Because that would make me dead, too." She says and we laugh. When I go over to play a video game, I see another boy I hadn't seen before. His hair was past down his back and straight and red, like the fire trucks at my cousin Steph's fire department. And he had red eyes. It was weird, like he was an alien or something._

"_Aagh!" I say. He looks just like the red floor. He looks at me with a confused look on his face, "I'm sorry. I didn't see you."_

"_Oh," he says, looking down, then back up again, "My name's Brick, what's yours?"_

"_Charlie. How old are you?"_

"_Seven, you?"_

"_Seven. Wanna play _Mortal Kombat_?" I asked. He grinned._

"_You're on." _

_**END OF FLASHBACK**_

God, I hate flash backs. They always take _forever, _and they only bring up stuff you'd rather forget. Every time I go back and remembered thinking my faux-bro was some kind of living Raggedy Andy doll I feel kind of, well… ashamed I guess. Weird. Oh, I think Aunt El is talking.

"Well, as you all know, The Palace of Westminster, commonly known as The Houses of Parliament, is located here on the South Bank of the River Thames. Close to hear are Westminster Abby and St. Margaret's church,"

"In 1042, the building was created by King Edward the Confessor (who was quite the architect in his time) right across from the Abby, which came first. Even though nobody lives here now, the Houses of parliament was a royal residence until a fire in 1512 that took out most the building. It was rebuilt, obviously, but some of the things, like the wooden beams above you, are the originals from the 16th century,"

"Not long after being rebuilt, the place had a political takeover and stayed relatively peaceful until it was hit by a German bomb in May of 1941 during WWII. We will discuss more of the building in general as move along. Right now we are in the Royal Robing Room. The rules are:

Stay with me at all times

There are no photographs and no exceptions

Mobile phones are off at all times, if it's an emergency we have plenty available to use

Please don't talk while I'm talking, it's distracting

And please, and I urge this, do _not _in the seats in the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Those are only for MPs and Lords."

She says that for the morons who don't understand that that's kind of a given. We're in the Royal Robing Room where the whole thing starts. Bea looks like she's in wonderland, and I don't blame her. This place is kind of awesome.

**BPOV**

OH. MY. GOD. THIS PLACE IS SICK!

That was the first thought that crossed my mind as we got off the bus towards the building. Charlie told me that it's called Victoria Tower. I've seen pictures of it plenty of times, but seeing the place is so much more different. It's like, wow. It looks just like some kind of castle.

I made Charlie stop and take a picture together since we're partners. I wanted to be with Brick, but I guess Charlie's alright. It's kind of sunny today, even though I've heard it's always cloudy in England. Well, somebody lied. When I was in fifth grade, Wadsworth Magnet for High Achievers took a class field trip to D.C. and one of the places we went was The National Cathedral, which has some absolutely gorgeous tainted glass windows. It has this whole, gothic, medieval castle kind of thing going.

There's a huge entrance that's shaped like those funny looking doors you see in Vampire flicks, kind of oval-ish at the top. The whole façade is stony and has a gazillion windows. And there's a stone lion on top of a lamp holding a flag that says 'VR' on it.

"Hey Charlie, what does 'VR' mean?" I ask him.

"Pardon?" he says. I stifle a snort. Pardon? I still think it's kind of funny when somebody says that.

"'VR', on that flag with the stone lion up there. What does it mean?"

"Oh that, it means 'Vegemite Rocks', no lie. You see, the old boys who designed the place were a bit off in the head so they thought Vegemite was delicious and went all the way too Australia to get it. They worshipped it, and decided to make it their emblem. Now some folks like us, with good sense and fully-functioning taste buds, decided that it was physically impossible for any human beings to find Vegemite delicious in any way, so they lied and told everyone that the 'VR' on the flag meant 'Victoria Regina', which is Latin for 'Queen Victoria', "

"Personally, I think they did the right thing, seeing as it would probably cause a mass out-rage and eventually the people would rebel under the grounds that the guys who were supposed to be running the nation had 'gone off their rockers'." He said, finishing the most outlandish and historically incorrect answer anyone had ever attempted to tell me, which isn't much technically because people hardly ever to lie to me. They just don't see a point in it because of my rational mind. At the same time though, you heard what I heard, so you know what I'm talking about.

"Now that you've finished telling me the worst twist of history I've ever heard I'd like the truth now." I said

"Believe what you like, but I'm telling you, everybody who knows about it will say it means 'Victoria Regina', but they don't know any better. They're only telling you what they've been told." He says with a shrug.

"And if the Prime Minister doesn't know the truth about it, why should you?"

"I find myself taking to believing the most illogical and far-fetched versions of stories that other people tell me."

"You mean normal people."

"Precisely."

"You, sir, are exasperating."

"And you, ma'am, need to loosen up." I rolled my eyes. Oh joy; I'm stuck with the Great Nitwit until lunch, when I can go find Brick. Gosh, even his name gives me strange contortions in the pit of my stomach. Could they be the silly little butterflies Callie always talks about? But no, Blossom Merangue may get crushes, but she does _not _get butterflies. She leaves that to hopeless romantics like Callie.

We finally get to the Royal Robing Room, as I find out later. There's a gorgeous blue carpet that's deep like my mom's eyes. There's an elaborate wooden décor with a beautifully designed headboard and the ceiling had these cool kind of square-ish/diamond designs carved in. there are these ginormous, beautiful lamps hanging from the ceiling, and giant paintings one every wall. Something Charlie said woke me from my reverie.

"What do you think?" he asks

"I think the place is beyond words. It kind of reminds me of the National Cathedral."

"The what?" I realize he doesn't know what I'm talking about.

"In America." I say.

"Oh."

"You should really see it. The entrance we went in had actual Gargoyles out front, being it's a church and all. Oh, and it has the world's most beautiful stained-glass windows."

"Really?"

"Yeah, there's even one with a moon rock in it that Apollo-something brought back to Earth."

"Wow."

"Yeah. And the tour guides dress like nuns."

"Oh my god, nuns?" he says with the same face he used when he told me about Vegemite.

"Yeah, why?" Suspicious…

"I use to go to a Catholic school." Whoa. So didn't see that coming.

"What? You went to a _catholic school_?" In shock.

"Yeah, for seventh grade. You know when people say nuns are crazy?"

"Yeah?" Suspicious again.

"They are. Very. And the kids there are worse than regular kids."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's like their parents think that if you put your juvenile delinquent in a Catholic school that automatically makes them saints."

"No way, so why'd you go?" Trying and failing to not laugh.

"My mom moved, and she wanted me to go to a nice school to put me in check so she enrolled me in St. Joseph's School for God Fearing Young Men." He says in his best posh voice.

"Oh wow." I snort.

"Sadly, the only thing those kids feared were the nuns. And the police, barely. The thing is though, I'm not even Catholic, my mum is."

"What're you?"

"Islamic." With a straight face.

"You're joking."

"You're right, I'm Jewish."

"Like you're dad?"

"I actually don't know what he is. My grandmum is, and she basically raised me, so."

"What were the nuns like?"

"They were god awful. How can you call yourself a Christian and torture innocent little boys-"

"Innocent?" I interrupt him.

"I take that back. Almost-"

"Barely." Interrupt him again. Remember what I said about the Annoying orange thing

"Innocent little boys that don't deserve it."

"You know what I mean. And for some reason they singled me out."

"I wonder why?"

"I'm serious, Sister Dorothy really had it in for me, old bat. Every time somebody put a tack in her chair or spiked her coffee or talked, it was me. If I stayed one more week there, I swear my knuckles would be permanently deformed by that demonic ruler of hers-" but he got cut off when this lady just randomly shouts 'Charlie' and blinds-sides him in a hug that looks very tight. My gaze wandered from the weird love-fest going on in front of me to a certain red haired boy.

He's wearing this ice melting smile looking at Charlie and the crazy lady that snuck up on him. There's that feeling again. Then he looks over and sees me staring. He raises a fiery eyebrow and shoots me a half smile that looks just like a mysterious crescent moon and I have to bite my tongue to keep from squealing so I turn my head away, hoping my hair will draw away from the evidence of my emotions' treason.

Turns out Senorita Psycho is actually a pretty decent lady named Ms. Turner who happens to be our tour guide. After laying down the law and giving us a quick overview we were off, and then lunch where I can hopefully sneak a flirt with Brick.

First off, they split our company in half and Charlie and mine's group were off to the Royal Gallery. It kind of reminds me of a fancy dining room. There are pretty chandeliers lining the ceiling on either side in two straight rows. There's a lot of wood here too. There are groups of small, round wooden tables and old-fashioned straight back wooden chairs with the same designs on their backs that the chandeliers were in. There were a bunch of paintings here too but two of them took the cake.

One showed this guy named Nelson being killed at the Battle of Trafalgar and the other depicted a man called the 'Duke of Wellington' meeting somebody from Prussia (Prussia?) named Blucher after a Battle at a place called Waterloo. Weird stuff. But you don't care about what the room looks like, you want to know what happened there.

"Where is Matalee?" I swear, at times Charlie can be dumb as a brick.

"You mean Waterloo?"

"Need you correct me if you know already what I'm talking about?"

"No Char, I have no idea where _Waterloo _is."

"Okay, okay, no need to get snappy. Sheesh." He puts his hands up in a defensive gesture.

"Are you even hearing what the lady's saying?" I roll my eyes at him as we walk around.

"The better question is, am I listening? Am I hearing? Sure. Am I listening? Maybe. Do I care about what she's saying? Hardly." He shrugs.

"What if they gave us a pop quiz? You'd be clueless."

"Clue_ful, _babe. Clueful."

"How can you be so sure of yourself? Also, clueful isn't a word."

"Of course it is, haven't you ever checked the _Charles Topherton VII Dictionary_? It's become quite a hit. As to why I'd ace that test with ease, when we were little me and-" but he was cut off when we both turned to see the strangest thing either of us had ever witnessed. Well at least, the strangest thing I'd ever seen.

**A/N: Well, that certainly took forever. Once again, I can't apologize enough for how long that took, honestly. I had no idea how long it would be. I could give you a number of excuses, but I don't imagine you'd care too much. So this is pretty long, and it's just part 1 of day 1, which I'm guessing most of you know from experience is always the longest after the last day. I left you with a bit of a cliffy there. Don't worry; I don't plan on taking as long next time to update. For those of you who may feel I didn't do the Houses any justice, I truly apologize. Because this story is about B., not the Houses of Parliament, I didn't feel it necessary to go into too many specifics. **

**Shout out to: AToxicLullaby, She-Pirates kick-BUTT, and 1000GreenSun for reviews, I appreciate it, and I didn't lie about the BlxBr action, that will definitely be here. Thank you for your patience and thank you for reading, and I love you all enormously! (But if any of you show up at my house, I **_**will **_**call the cops)**

**Yours Truly,**

**Songbird213**


	4. On the Run

**A/N: See, I'm earlier this time! I made sure to update fast, seeing as it was eating celestial-mystic-universe up not knowing. And now, enjoy!**

**Day 1**

**Part 2:**

**On the Run**

**EPOV**

"Em!" Lena called to me from a bench next to the Fish n' Chips stand I was standing at.

"What is it, Lee?" I say, preparing myself for yet _another _of my best friend's ridiculous conspiracy theories.

"You gotta come see this!" She says while she grabs my hand and drags me to the sidewalk as I scramble to place the cash in the hand of the lady at the counter.

"Lee, what is so important that I couldn't finish paying-" But what I saw froze me in place. My jaw hit the floor. It was without a doubt the oddest procession I'd ever seen.

There was a purple and red horse that was bucking like mad. Well, I suppose it was a horse, it closely resembled one. There was a cowboy on top that happened to have the same blood red hair as my ex, Brick Jones, and a clown dangling dangerously over the end of it that was, for all appearances, completely out of it and somehow avoiding being kicked in the face. Behind them was a girl with flaming red hair and pink knee-high sneakers driving a motorcycle and concentrating hard on following the horse and riders in front of her.

Sitting behind her was a cute guy with curly blonde hair that broke his strange focus just long enough to wink at me, and the girl in front of him broke her concentration just long enough to elbow him in the stomach and yell something at him I couldn't make out. They were coming from Parliament, which looked kind of like what you would think Atlantis looked like right before it went down. I had an odd feeling that something very strange had just happened.

"Bloody Hell," Lee whispers.

"Bloody Hell is right. I've got to go," I say, realizing that I'm about to miss my appointment that my mother secured at Cobblestone Day Spa. My cuticles look something absolutely _dreadful_. As I started in a brisk walk to Carly, my Porsche, I couldn't help but that cowboy did look a lot like Brick, and trust me, you do not get Brick Jones confused with too many people. I shook off the weird feeling as I entered the car.

"Where to, Madame?" Came Monte's (Monty) slightly nasally voice from the front seat. He's been our driver as long as I can remember.

"You know where, Monte." I replied as we took off. Could it have been Jones?

"Nah."

**CPOV**

**30 Minutes Earlier**

"Charlie, is that…"

"I think so."

"But…"

"I know."

"How…"

"I don't know."

At that point we were both stunned into silence. We both kind of cocked our heads to the side a bit at it, trying to find reason in this

. It looked like Brick in some kind of crazy cowboy getup riding a purple and red horse with Mitch dressed up like a clown behind him struggling to stay on. Unfortunately, they were having quite a time doing so, seeing as Brick's never ridden a horse in his life and Mitch can't tell the head from the bum.

Brick was holding up pretty well, but I can't say the same for Mitch. They were going at a trot and were rather steady but I had a feeling that this couldn't end well, us being in the Houses of Parliament and all. I grabbed Bea's arm and nodded at her and we both ran up to them. They weren't going very fast, so we managed to keep up with them by jogging. The absolute best part was the horrified looks and sounds from everybody in the Gallery.

"Brick, what the bloody hell are you doing?" I said to him while trying to catch my breath.

"I agree, Brick, are you insane? How in the world did you get a horse into Parliament?" Bea was coming up behind me, her face flushed.

"Hello, remember me, the poor unfortunate clinging on for dear life?" Mitch calls, and he looks like he's about to wave his arms but he checks him self before he lets go of Brick.

"Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue as to how I ended up in this situation," Brick said, completely ignoring Mitch, "Me and Mitch were in some room that's name escapes me, and I happened to comment on how gorgeous a horse was and blinked. And now I'm here, galloping around looking for all the world like your everyday nut." He ends even more flustered than Bea.

"Okay, it doesn't matter how you got up there, just come down. I'll calm the horse," Bea said as she walked around to the front of the horse. We were almost there, almost. Everything was going so smoothly, and then Mitch happened.

Somehow Bea had managed to calm the beast down and Mitch had to climb down first. Of course, the dipwad managed to get a fully sharpened pencil in his pocket. When he already had one foot out the stirrups his pencil fell out and managed to stab the thing in the backside. What idiot keeps sharp objects in their pockets?

Well, the horse did what horses do when pierced with pointy stuff and unrestrained. It bucked. Bea ended up being thrown against a wall, Mitch fell over the side and nearly had his brains bashed out by an incoming leg, and Brick had to tangle his fingers in the horse's mane to stay on top.

Me? Well, I wasn't being completely accurate when I said Bea was thrown against a wall. She was thrown against me, who was thrown against a wall. So how could I have seen all this? Well, as it turns out, things become a lot sharper in the seconds before you lose consciousness.

**BPOV**

I could tell you about all of the insane things that led up to me futilely chasing the most unlikely trio I'd ever seen through the winding halls of Parliament, but there's hardly anything to say except that Brick and Mitch barged in the room on the strangest horse I'd ever seen in my life dressed in the most ridiculous costumes I'd ever seen in my life (though, to be honest, not even a Barney costume could make Brick look ridiculous), Mitch stabbed the horse with a pencil, the horse kicked me and Charlie into a wall. After about a minute of trying to return Charlie back to planet Earth (and you already know how hard it is to wake the boy up when he's just asleep) I took off after them to see what I could do.

Before they left they managed to completely destroy the Royal Gallery, tearing up paintings, knocking over tables, breaking chairs, nearly setting the place ablaze by knocking over dozens of candelabras, and even breaking a few chandeliers. People were running rampant, babies wailed (who brings their baby to the Houses of Parliament?), basically absolute pandemonium.

As I stood to survey the wreckage I choked on all the sawdust floating in the air. I looked around and it didn't look like anybody had been too badly injured. I felt a heaviness tug at my heart at the sight of all the ruined history, all the things that couldn't be replaced like the large beautiful paintings. The Prussian guy was missing a head and the sword belonging to Nelson's throat was laying on an abandoned baby carriage on the opposite side of the room, covered in hoof prints.

A wailing in the hall snapped me out of my stupor and I was flying out the door. I turned back once to see if Charlie was alright. He was still out cold and coated in a thin layer of saw dust, but otherwise fine.

It wasn't hard to find them, seeing as they left a trail of devastation and chaos in their wake. I've seen some horses go wild before, but this was definitely not a normal rampage. Not that any part of this is normal in the slightest. I followed the broken vases and tables and people who'd been forced against the walls to avoid being turned into human pieces of floor gum.

I finally caught up with them in the Central Lobby, which actually looks just like an octagon. I watched helplessly as they flipped a desk and three couch-looking things over, everybody who was there having already cleared out. Mitch started yelling something at me, which I just barely heard over the commotion.

"Some…one…help…me…off…this…bloody…horse!" he screamed from his precarious position swinging between the violent maverick's hind legs. _I really hope the horse is a mare, for Mitch's sake_, I thought at that moment. Honestly, though Mitch, what makes you think somebody's going to run up to that thing and cut you off of it just because you don't have the good sense to not carry sharp things in your pocket. And that's when the first head flew.

Not literally, well yes literally but not people's heads'. Well actually, yeah, they were actual people's heads', but what I mean is that they were statues. Unfortunately, the horse donkey-kicked (no pun intended) a statue's head off and therefore knocked Mitch over the head and rendered him unconsciousness. Seeing Mitch dangling from the horse possibly lifeless was enough of an incentive to drive me into action. I ran toward the horse, the two people who happened to stumble into the room yelling that I was going the wrong way.

"BRICK! _BRICK_! THE HORSE KICKED MITCH IN THE HEAD!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"WHAT? THE HORSE CAN'T LICK MITCH, HE'S BACK THERE." Brick yelled back.

"KICKED! HE _KICKED _HIM!" I yell even louder. I'll probably have laryngitis for the rest of week, if I make it through the next five minutes.

"Oh. OH!" He said, whirling around to see Mitch's limp body.

"I'M GOING TO DISTRACT THE HORSE!"

"SUBTRACT?"

"DISTRACT!"

"Ohh. DON'T DO THAT! YOU COULD BE CRUSHED! I MANAGED TO KEEP IT FROM RUNNING ANYONE OVER, BUT IT'LL BE HARDER IF YOU'RE RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT!" He yelled, trying desperately to make me see reason.

"BRICK, IT ISN'T UP FOR DISCUSSION. WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE IF WE WANT EVERYONE TO MAKE IT OUT OF HERE ALIVE. FOR ONE THING, WE DON'T EVEN KNOW IF MITCH IS JUST OUT OR BRAIN DEAD!" Before he could respond and weaken my bravado any more, I jumped right in front of the horse.

If I get trampled into the next realm or rammed into the next city, at least it would buy everyone time to get out and for Brick to, hopefully, jump off the horse and drag Mitch with him to go find Charlie.

"B! WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU DOING?" Brick screamed. I ignored him.

"COME GET ME YOU LOLLIPOP-LICKIN' PANSIE!" I screamed, saying the first thing that came to mind. I wanted to slap myself for that cheesy insult but I barely had time to take a breath before it was time to move.

Luckily, I didn't get mauled by the demon horse as I'd thought, but it did start to chase me. I ran through the nearest door into a room with a myriad of red seats and closely resembled a chapel. The House of Lords. You've just led the most destructive beast you've ever seen in your entire life into one of the most historic and important rooms in the worldwide government system. Great. Maybe next you'll introduce a raging bull to Capitol Hill.

I ran around and around, hiding under desks, climbing the seats, jumping up on the thrones. I made it out of the room after sticking out my tongue, blowing raspberries, teasing the horse-thing, and just being a nuisance in general. I ran through the hall with them hot on my tail. Strangely enough, I thought about Scooby Doo and how the chase sequences always had music. So while I raced around the lobby hopping from the House of Lords, the Chamber of Commons, and Commons Lobby, the strange little stereo in my head played 'Low Day' by Capra.

Green chairs, spunky statues, and green benches whizzed by in a furious pursuit. Soon I found a hallway and led the horse all through the halls with Brick calling the horse the whole way and Mitch's condition undetermined. I was content though, because I knew that as long as it was chasing me it wasn't stomping any children or elderly people or MPs. I found myself in a hallway looking area that was lined with white marble statues of guys in stuffy suits. It was the only place in the building I'd seen that was marble itself. I'd like to tell you the name of it, but I was too busy running for my life to stop and ask a tour guide.

And that was when I got an idea. I doubled back around and ran from room to room, looping my tracks, retracing my steps, and running in circles. After a while I managed to lose the horse. That bought me just enough time to find Charlie. I hoped I'd be able to wake him, because otherwise I'd have to leave him, and sometime along the way a fire'd started. While I was sure a fire at the parliament building would definitely be more than enough cause for alarm, I couldn't be sure they'd get to him before the gas and flames did. He was, after all, in an inner chamber.

To my relief I finally stumbled upon him, sitting on the floor. My relief turned to concern quickly when I saw him. He'd scooted into a corner. The boy'd shut his eyes and was whispering something to himself, his legs pulled up to his chest and his eyes shut tight, as if blocking himself from something.

"Charlie!" I said sternly. I thought I'd heard him say 'I can't' to himself.

"CHARLIE!" I screamed this time, coughing now. The fire'd gotten pretty intense, so I kept close to the floor. His head snapped up and his normally clear blue eyes seemed to be stuck in some kind of strange fog. I figured the shock of being knocked out then waking up in a burning building had him out of sorts. I scuttled awkwardly over to him crouching low on the floor.

"Maurie?" He said to me, his eyes were on me but unseeing.

"No, Charlie. My name is Bea and you need to come with me now." I said calmly, talking to him as I once saw a lifeguard talk to a kid that was trying not to drown.

"Okay," he said in a dazed voice. I hoisted him up and we wheezed and limped away.

We were almost out the door when I heard a very un-horsely like whiny behind me. It seemed to half wake Charlie up a bit.

"Guys, run!" Brick shouted helplessly, coughing himself. I started to worry about him as I watched him close to lying down on the horse with his shirt covering his nose, doing his best not to breathe in the carbon monoxide. Now it seemed Charlie was fully awake, and was now dragging me with him as we ran from the maniac-devil-horse thing. We screamed for the few stragglers still here to get out of the way. We tore through the hallways until we reached the most chapel looking room in the place. We were cornered. Out of the Kitchen, into the fire, almost literally. This was the end of the line.

That is, until I had an idea.

I grabbed Charlie's hand and stage whispered for him to just go with it. He nodded and we started running around, the both of us and then we ran towards the wall. I really hated doing this, because of the historic value of the glass and the hottest boy I know was riding the horse I was trying to manipulate. But the thing had already ripped a plaque off the wall, so it really couldn't be helped.

We ran while the clock in my head ticked off numbers and sweat formed all over body, mainly in my hands. If things went wrong, or my timing was off in the slightest, Charlie and I could end up being smashed into the wall, and that could be very bad. Very bad indeed.

"Umm, Bea…" Charlie started, but I cut him off with a sharp break and dropped his hand. My guess was that, the horse's mind might be sharp but it's body was still very big. If we ran up to the wall and went in different directions it would be confused and his body would have too much momentum, and he'd either crash into the wall or jump through the stained glass window. I had to be mindful of Brick, though, because whatever happens to the horse is going to happen to him, and it wasn't safe enough for him to jump from the horse yet and there was still the unconscious clown to consider.

Charlie understood me and ran in the other direction. It confused the horse just like I'd hoped it would, and its lumbering body was to slow to move in any direction, but it's long, powerful legs easily cleared the window. Brick ducked and Mitch was smacked into the Horse's behind. There was large clashing sound and we had to back up to avoid the shards of glass coming down, like the prettiest rain I ever saw. But we had bigger things to worry about right then, and there wasn't even enough time to high five my smooth plan as we heard screaming coming from outside and the sound of things knocking to the ground. We ran for the nearest exit, the flames licking at our heels, which happened to be the Jewel Tower.

After haphazardly scrambling across the courtyard to the street and stumbling over a few benches older than America, we finally saw them disappear into a flurry of people.

"We've got to stop them before they seriously injure somebody," Charlie said, but I'd already disappeared into the crush. He watches entirely too many action movies. Everyone knows that in real life, it's less talk and more walk.

"Wait up!" he called as we weaved our way through the aftermath as the loud ringing of sirens hung in the air.

**BrPOV**

This has been the most painful day of my life. Do you know what it's like, being a bloke who's never once ridden horse before being forced to ride one bareback while it's peeved? And without any _protective gear_, if you catch my meaning. Let's just say, whether or not I recover, physically and mentally, from what's going on here remains to be seen. I like animals, don't get me wrong, but sometimes when it comes to out of control psychotic creatures that seem to find joy in completely obliterating beautiful pieces of history and have seriously questionable origins, violence _is _the answer. The only answer, in my opinion. And position.

Somewhere along the way I lost sight of B. and Charlie. I have no idea what to do with Mitch but pray he doesn't have serious brain damage. Okay, _more _brain damage. B. came very close to giving me a heart attack when she jumped in front of the demon bronco (bronco?). Then the thing went mad and started to actually _chase _her. At that point it stopped bucking, thank god, but only because it was so focused on ramming her into next Tuesday.

And then after a long time uncomfortably riding the animal trying, however unsuccessfully, to mow down the girl of my dreams all over the place, we finally lost her. Correction, _it _lost her. While the beast looked around dazedly, I started to worry for Mitch. He _is _my best mate and he was also slung over the backend of a horse, possibly dead. And I'd end up the same way if I tried to check.

I was reminded of a scary movie where there was a sad bloke who was possessed. He was sitting inside his body, looking out from it but he had absolutely no control over it. As you might have guessed, a demon had taken him. Sure, after terrorizing his entire village the demon left and the survivors didn't blame him for killing almost everybody he'd ever known, but they still looked at him queerly and avoided him as much as possible.

This is kind of like my situation. I didn't trounce Parliament or any surrounding areas and leave it in shambles, I didn't run anyone over, I destroy anyone's livelihood, but I _am _guilty ofriding the horse that did. Regardless of whether or not I had any control over the situation or was even voluntarily part of it, at the end of the day I was the one who _should _have been in control. So even if they wouldn't care to admit to it (which I assure you, they would), for most the blame will fall squarely on me.

So I don't own a horse. So I have never ridden a horse once in my life. So nobody saw a horse stroll into Parliament. How does it sound, that I just woke up on the back of rampaging horse dressed up in this inflammatory outfit? It sounds like lock him up and throw away the key, that's what it sounds like.

If that weren't bad enough, it appears the thing has found B. It's ugly head perked up and abnormally large nostrils flared. And then it grinned. It actually _grinned_, and it wasn't a pleasant grin, either.

Long story short it found B. and –Yay!- Charlie and ended up hunting them down for a good while before we got to the chapel. To make matters worse, I think it started a fire sometime around Stephen's Hall, so along with my other troubles I now had to worry that nobody dies of asphyxiation. My head was reeling and it felt like someone had stuffed my brain and throat with cotton balls. Dirty cotton balls, if I may add. Cotton balls soaked in motor oil or cyanide, maybe.

I was in so much pain and utter confusion I was almost positive that if we kept riding I'd soon see fire and brimstone. It didn't help that I was so high up, either. Even though Mitch was unconscious and in serious danger of being brained by _it_ at any moment, at least he was close to the ground.

Basically, our encounter in Westminster Chapel ended with me, Mitch, and the thing sailing through one of its beautiful windows. The ones that were rebuilt after a German bomb. I would have face-palmed myself if I weren't facing the very real possibility of sudden death.

As a reward for not dying during the painfully sharp jump I got a nice not-so-little cut on my forehead, and I'm almost positive there's a piece of window embedded in my cheek. And then we were on a mad rampage through the streets of London, which I know sounds a bit cliché, but what can you do? I looked around for Charlie and B. but I didn't see them. The wind was definitely not my friend today, and it beat horribly against my already throbbing head and eyes.

I found out a very good reason for cowboy hats. When you're riding very, very fast, very, very hard they're very, very handy for keeping my waist long hair out of my face. I salute you, cowboy hats. Strangely enough, it brought to mind all the times Aunt El'd told me that I must think I'm Samson, or something and that I needed to cut my hair. Right then, I couldn't help but agree with her.

As we were mid mad dash the thing started to teeter. I looked down to see that it's hoof (hoof?) was stuck in a baby carriage. I sucked in a breath and hoped to high heaven that there wasn't a baby in there. When I saw that there wasn't a toddler casserole in the carriage or any infant flapjacks lying in the street I let out a sigh of relief.

It was then that I realized that if the thing falls over, _I _was going to fall over with the weight of it –which is probably about a million pounds, roughly estimating- and Mitch –the guy eats a ton, so I haven't the slightest clue- on top of me. Right as I was preparing for the end, the thing managed to shake it off, nearly hitting some old lady that strayed to the close.

And then she shook her fist at me. Me! Like _I_ was the one who almost took the old bat out with a flying stroller! As we turned down winding streets, we caused a number of accidents. A couple of people almost got hit by cars trying to dodge the horse. We tore through department stores and eateries and demolished a lot of vehicles. We may have run over somebody at some point, but all I could do was hope that they weren't too hurt. Then I thought about the horse and I knew better.

Somewhere behind us a fire was roaring, probably from a fuel engine or a ruined electrical circuit and people were running and screaming. I never knew a beast on a rampage could cause so much utter destruction, and I had a front row seat. In fact, I was shooting the scene.

A group of little girls playing skip-rope and hop-scotch were very nearly trampled, their dolls and toys and hop-scotch board damaged beyond repair. All ran away screaming as they were pulled out of the way by horrified adults. But the look the little girl whose teacup set was smashed to bits (she herself almost sharing the same fate) gave me was like a knife in my chest. _I _was the monster here. Although, I'd rather have the little girl alive and uninjured hating my guts then end up like one of the sad little decapitated dolls sitting in the gutter.

It was then that I heard something that sounded like an engine revving up behind me. Struggling against the blistering wind I turned my head around to see B. and Charlie riding on the back of a motorcycle, B. driving. She knows how to drive a _motorcycle_! I can barely drive a car on a _good_ day. And where in Westminster did they get a motorcycle? She could, of course, have taken a motorcycle with a key already in the ignition, but who is dense enough to do something like that?

Speaking of the dense, Charlie was holding on to her waist, but she didn't seem to notice, which isn't surprising, given the situation. I, for one, did notice but it's difficult to shoot daggers at someone from the back of a rearing horse. B. yelled something at me, which I strained to hear.

"What?"

"Get ready to jump!" she yelled louder. _What?_

"_What!_"

"I said-"

"You want me to jump from a horse that's probably breaking every traffic law south of Wales that's probably ten feet high!"

"Um, yeah,"

"You're asking me to jump from a moving train, do you realize that?"

"I guess you can say that,"

"What about Mitch?"

"I've got Mitch; you just jump when I tell you to, got it?"

"Yes ma'am," I said obediently, realizing arguing with her would serve no purpose. Bea seemed to be about to put some kind of plan in action when she turned around and elbowed Charlie in the stomach. I wish I could say that I enjoyed that moment but the horse jerked in a way that nearly threw me from the saddle, so the thought was erased.

The road started to become less crowded, so B. pulled up next to us. She then pulled out a sharpened nail file and proceeded to cut the straps around Mitch's foot while Charlie leaned in at an awkward position to hold Mitch's head so he didn't get tossed into the street; and to watch the road as well, I think. _And what are they going to with him once they cut him free? I don't think it's possible to fit all three of them on a motorcycle._

When they got him free Charlie dragged Mitch across and slung him over the middle of the motorcycle. _Well then, I stand corrected_.

His face was centimeters from the ground, as far as I could see, and Charlie was stuck between either putting half of Mitch's body across his lap or falling off the bike. I don't know exactly what happened, because we had now been riding for a while and were coming upon some grass on the sides of the road instead of endless pavement. B. was yelling instructions.

"Hold on to the reins tight and sling you're leg over the other side… good, now spread your legs apart and prepare to jump. When you jump we're going to pull over to the side of the road. Now on the count of three I want you to jump off the horse and into the grass, ok? Ready? One, two, three, and JUMP!" she yelled and I somehow managed to bound off from the back of the deranged horse into the ground.

Of course a billion things could have gone wrong, like my foot getting caught in a stirrup and I get dragged down the road, causing my face to turn into a paper shredder or I could have miscalculated the jump and end up lying in the street with every bone in my body broken, and then some. I guess somebody up there had pity on me because I landed face first in the grass, minus the paper shredder.

**BPOV**

When Brick jumped from the back of the horse, I slowed down the bike for the horse to pass and drove over to where he was. I hopped of the motorcycle and ran over to where Brick lying in the grass on his stomach, leaving Mitch to Charlie. I fell to my knees next to him, taking his face in my hands and looking into his eyes. He was obviously out of it, his eyes beginning to glaze over. I decided it best to make sure he was still in possession of all five senses.

"Brick, honey, can you hear me?" I asked him, looking into his eyes.

"My head hurts something awful," He said, his voice slurred. Charlie started walking over. I told him to give me his blue and black drawstring back. He asked me why so I told him to stop being difficult and just give me the bag.

"I know sweetie, can you see me?"

"You-you look just like an apple blossom. A pretty rose…" His almost unintelligible voice trailing off.

"Baby, how does your stomach feel?"

"I-" But he didn't get a chance to finish because he turned his head to the side and hurled into Charlie's tote, which I had waiting. I rubbed his back and tried to say some words of encouragement.

"Well, there goes my gameboy," Charlie sighed. I paused to glare at him. After Brick finished he passed out. Looking at his face I could see little cuts and a piece of glass that was stuck in his cheek. I pulled it out with a stab of guilt, and he grunted in his sleep. I took this as a good opportunity to just look at him for a second. What can I say, I'm known for taking advantage of situations.

Great, we've got two boys out cold, two people present in the world, and one motorcycle, that's almost out of juice by the way. Just peachy.

Charlie and I decided to kind of sit for a second to come up with something and wait for Mitch to possibly regain awareness.

"How do you know how to ride motorcycles?" he asked.

"Well, my Uncle Norman's from McKinney, Texas, and _everybody _in McKinney knows how to ride a motorcycle," I said simply.

"Even the kids?"

"Even the babies," I said, both of us laughing lightly by now.

"Okay, how do you know so much about horses?" He asked once we'd settled down.

"My grandparents on my mom's side live in Georgia, Tennessee and own a ranch where people get thrown off horses all the time. Some of them are minor, just a lot of back pain or a heavy headache and a touch of vertigo. Some, though, are really bad, like Brick's where vomiting and loss of consciousness happen. That usually only happens at rodeos though, but what Brick's been through today probably qualifies as a rodeo ride anyway. One time, a bull went crazy and a guy got so jostled around that he went blind," I started, then got quiet.

"And you think that could happen to Brick," He asked, but it was more of a statement.

I took a deep breath, "Possibly, but I don't think so," I said. We both turned to look at Brick, thinking our own thoughts. And then I saw a suspicious liquid dribble out of his mouth and down his chin. I shuffled over, my mind jumping to the worse of conclusions against my will.

"Aw crap," I say, opening his mouth. I was so scared my whole body went rigid.

"What? What happened?" Charlie said trying to get a look at Brick's face, I told him to back up. I looked around inside Brick's mouth and found something that made me nearly topple over in relief.

"Bea, what happened?" Charlie said in his best no-playing-around voice. I stifled a chuckle at it.

"Well, I saw some blood trailing out of Brick's mouth and my first reaction was that he might have some internal bleeding and that his lungs could quite possibly be gone-"

"WHAT!"

"Charlie, calm down and pay attention. When I opened his mouth I saw deep bite marks on his tongue. He bit it up pretty bad, but there's no internal bleeding that I'm aware of. It ought to knit on its own because of the body's natural healing process and all the in the saliva. Although, he'll have a fat tongue for a little while." I said. Charlie slumped in relief. I went over to Mitch to see what was up with him.

He wasn't dead, thank God, but that didn't mean he was all here. Sadly, I didn't pack any smelling salts, although I should have apparently. I felt around his chest to see if any ribs were broken when someone said, 'Well, hello there,' and I nearly knocked Mitch back out.

"God, Mitch you're all right," I said letting out a breath.

"Who?"

"Uh, oh."

"Charlie!" I yelled and Charlie came scrambling over.

"Bea, what- oh hey, you're up," He said to Mitch

"Who are you people?" Mitch said, looking around with his eyes sort of empty in a way I can't describe.

"Hey man, this isn't funny," Charlie said.

"What are you talking about?" He said.

"Um, Charlie?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think he's faking." I said. Charlie face-palmed him self.

"Brick is down for the count, Mitch's brain is stuck somewhere in la-la land, all we have is a dying motorcycle for transportation to support four people, and no doubt the police are on their way over right now," He said, throwing his hands up in the air. I hadn't even thought about the cops. Oh no, how do I tell my parents that I got arrested for helping to destroy the Parliament building? Actually, I think I may be safer in custody then if they were to send me home. Oh god, what if they charge us as terrorists! They can take us to adult court on those charges! I'm ruined for life!

I sat on the ground with my head in my hands pondering my personal downfall.

"We can't go back," I heard Charlie say. It felt like I was swimming through a mental haze and his voice was like fog lights.

"What-what do you mean we can't go back?" I said, starting to grasp at branches and roots and leaves, desperate to get to the light before the darkness swallows me whole.

"Don't you see, Bea? We aren't just a couple of stupid kids who sprayed painted graffiti on the outside walls or played around on the chairs in the Chamber of Commons! We _destroyed_ the Houses of Parliament, Bea! We pulverized one of the most famous and well-loved landmarks in the world and they're going to have to pay for it! We're criminals! Outlaws! Fugitives! Interpol will be after us! If we don't make our escape while they're trying to pull themselves together to issue a nationwide manhunt, we're sitting ducks!" He said frantically, walking in circles clutching fistfuls of curly blond hair.

"Charlie, get a hold of yourself!" I said, grabbing Charlie by his arms.

"I know, I'm just frustrated. We run, but then what? We just lay low our entire lives?" He said, his eyebrows furrowed.

"We figure out who's responsible for this and clear our names," I said like it's the easiest thing in the world.

"But how? We have no leads and nobody with any kind of motive. All we know is that Brick and Mitch woke up on the back of a horse-"

"Actually we have no idea what Mitch saw,"

"Unfortunately, neither does Mitch,"

"Well then, we're going to have to make Mitch wake up, won't we?" I said.

"How do we get someone with amnesia to regain their memory?" Charlie asked. I paused for a moment to think.

"Research?" I say, a number of plans already starting to formulate in my head.

"So what do we do with the motorcycle?" He asked

"Well we obviously can't use it anymore, seeing as a large group of people no doubt saw us take it and somebody's probably going to report it missing, so I'll have to dump it somewhere. It's a shame, though. Such a beautiful bike, you know? It's a top of the line 2011 Harley Fat Boy Lo-"

"Okay, yeah does that mean we're splitting up?" He said.

"You guys are sticking together, I'm splitting off." I said.

"What are you talking about, you're splitting off? I want to go with you-" Charlie said as I pulled Mitch up off the ground –he'd been sitting Indian-style watching our conversation- and headed over to the bike.

"Listen, Brick's out and Mitch might as well be out. We _need _to dump the bike because of it's connection to us. I'm the only person here that can drive it and there's no way we can leave those two alone so you'll be staying with them and I'll be going,"

"But-"

"You and Mitch are going to carry Brick to find some kind of cover while I'm gone. Stay close to the underbrush, don't make a lot of noise, and leave an inconspicuous trail in case the cops catch up with you. Try to find some kind of stream to cover up your smell from the bloodhounds they may or may not send. If I'm not back in thirty minutes, go on without me." I said as I climbed onto the black and chrome dirt bike and fired the thing up to take it as far away from where we were going as possible. Something told me that this was probably just the beginning of our troubles until we can figure out what the heck is going on. Mitch, is our only hope for amnesty, and, believe me, that's _never _the kind of thing you want to hear. We can only hope that Brick's alright when he wakes up and we'll be able to bring back Mitch's memory, and that some of it may be of some use to us.

"Bea-" He started, but the roar of the bike cut him off as I tore down the road and my thoughts swirled dangerously in my head.

**A/N: Whew, there's Chapter 4. Writing never ceases to amaze me, because I had absolutely no idea that the story was going to go in this direction. Honestly, I'm reading and guessing about this story almost as much as you are, valued reader. I like being able to recognize people, almost as much as I love feedback, so please review! For some reason it takes me forever to update so I've learned my lesson. **

**From now on no more promises, people. I greatly appreciate all the alerts, you guys make me feel so special! As a bit of an interlude, I was considering writing about where Mitch went when he was unconscious. Love it? Hate it? Got any ideas? Also, I apologize to the people of McKinney, Texas. I needed to write about somewhere with motorcycles, so if I have greatly offended you I sincerely apologize. Shout out to celestial-mystic-universe for reviewing and special thanks to 1000GreenSun for reviewing every chapter, you make me smile. **

**XOXO,**

**Songbird213**


	5. Red Hyde

**A/N: Well, well, here we are again. Enjoy the show, folks.**

**Day 4**

**Red Hyde**

**BPOV**

Well, we've been on the lam for approximately four days now. People say it's difficult to run away from home, but what about when your name is plastered all over the television and wanted for a capitol crime? I had to recall what I'd learned in fifth grade about runaway slaves' methods for staying alive and on the move. We don't go anywhere during the daytime, so the second we see the great orange sphere in the sky we split like Ms. Elmore's cleavage. We're constantly trying to find sources of water and the like to cover our scent. We split up and walking around to make _some _kind of attempt to throw off whoever was chasing us off.

Not to mention all the stuff we had to do to disguise ourselves. We snuck into the first McDonald's we saw that wasn't 24-hours at two in the morning and did a little beauty shop stuff in the bathroom. The day before that (Tuesday) we robbed a convenience store (Relax, it wasn't a stick up or anything, and when you think about it it's probably the lesser of two evils compared to what happened Monday. I mean, people's gotta eat) and managed to sneak some hair-care stuff before the Jamaican guy at the counter kicked us out (Me and Mitch, I always leave Charlie with Brick. I hardly trust a person to look over someone that barely knows how to look out for them self) with a broom while yelling something in Cockney (don't know what he said) at us as we bolted out the door and disappeared into the night.

See, while Mitch doesn't know a lot of things, he does know when it's time to run. And man can that boy _run_. I know I'm not the fastest girl, but my god! The only way I don't get left is by telling him to help Charlie carry Brick. Here are our current physical alterations:

Blossom- Hair long, brown. Wears shades, eyes are dead give away. Wears green cargos, pink t-shirt, and sneakers, courtesy of Wal-Mart (even though they don't actually know it )

Charlie- Bald (cap) from gag store, jean shorts, white tee, sneaks.

Brick- Hair to shoulder blades, black. Blue hoodie for eye cover but currently unnecessary for somewhat obvious reasons, brown with white-striped sweatpants, red sneaks.

Mitch- Hair short, blue (B. screwed up the hair dye instructions). Brown shirt (stolen from mean homeless guy that stole it from Laundromat), stonewashed jeans, sneaks (as you can see, cheap sneakers are trending).

So Brick _still _isn't conscious yet. Also, I found out in the process that Charlie is a licensed beautician.

He said it started as a way to make 'friends' -if you get my meaning- and he somehow ended up with an ordained license and loyal clientele. As outlandish as the story is, it would explain why his hair always looks great. For an 'accidental thing' he sure does take it seriously, though. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw Mitch's hair! Let me tell you, classic.

According to him we were in a bit of luck that Brick hadn't woken up around the time of the great undertaking. Charlie told me we probably would have had to tie Brick down if we wanted to chop the locks. I really didn't want to, but any boy with hair that long is going to attract attention, and he already going to attract attention enough as is.

We got away pretty much scot-free, but I realized I needed to find a T.V. so I could figure out what exactly was going on in the world. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's not knowing what's happening outside of my house, especially when it pertains to politics.

We ditched our cell phones sometime around the Wal-Mart Raid, because everybody who's ever seen a cop show knows you do _not_ keep phones with you when you're on the run. For one thing, they can use the phone company to trace the phone and figure out where you are regardless of whether or not you answer a call, and two, it's bothering to get calls from people you care about knowing you can't answer.

All I could think about sometimes was my parents somewhere wondering if I'm alright and where I am, or worse, what went wrong with my upbringing. And Callie and Taneeka wondering when exactly I decided to become a terrorist. Well, Taneeka would, anyways. Sounds fun, right? And Brick mumbles in his sleep (cutely) about somebody named Kent and demon ferrets, whatever that's about.

As of right now, me and Mitch are lifting an internet café's treats. We're eating and stuffing plastic bags with treats. It's all good and fine until we remember that we need to be out of the city before dawn, which means a shipload of running and ducking and probable lying in order to do so.

It's called _The Sweet Escape, _and it's just outside of Chichester, West Sussex, according to a travel store map. How did we go from North London all the way to Chichester, West Sussex, you ask? Then I probably haven't mentioned that we've been hopping trains either, did I? I know you always hear people say that it's different from the movies, and you're going hear it again. It is different from the movies.

First and foremost, there are _not_ a whole bunch of smelly hobos that closely resemble clowns intoxicated and rolled in sewage passing around cans of less than savory looking beans and brown bottles with 'X's on them. Secondly, you can't swing your legs over the side and sing 'Home on the Range' -unless, of course, you dream of being paraplegic- and hop off to go join the hobo towns.

Most of the time, if we can find a train to hitch a ride on, we have to either sneak into train closets or hang out with the livestock. Both are smelly, confined, and contain stains of questionable origin. Sometimes its hours before it makes a stop, and some members of the group have bladders the size of a peach. Many times we have to clear out immediately because the conductors come to inspect the train. You can imagine having an immobile pubescent-advanced teenage boy isn't exactly ideal for a speedy get-away, but it's definitely not negotiable.

Once we got lucky and found an old train on its way to a junkyard (I always do background checks) with a peeling yellow caboose that we snuck on to and relaxed in. People are much less careful when it comes to vehicle doomed to be scrap metal. Apparently we weren't the only one's who hung out there, because it was covered in wrappers, beer bottles, confetti, and items that I doubt you'd want me to go into detail about.

The caboose, which we rode all the way from somewhere in South Surrey to somewhere close to Chichester –okay, sue me for not having a clue about non-capitol cities- and kind of relaxed for a bit. You know, before we cleared out like the rednecks in my Aunt Tammie's neighborhood on the 4th of July when the Sheriff drove up because they set off firecrackers in the middle of the street.

We even found a video-camera, which I suggested throwing into the train tracks to obliterate. If we used the camera and it got misplaced during a mad dash the police could use it to track us down. Then Charlie argued that if something happened to us then we could use it like a video journal and a last will and testament. So I told him that it better not get lost, otherwise I was going to push _him_ into the tracks and let wild dogs eat his body, and he agreed. And that's the short version of how we got our video confessional.

It's technically Charlie's so we have to ask his permission first. While it's probably never a good idea to have any secrets when on the run, especially from the law, there are things that should be made known, they just not _now_. Not to mention, I have an idea for what _should _be made known. But speaking of things that are better to tell later, I kind of spied on Charlie and Mitch changing Brick's clothes. They bitched about it the whole time, but I hardly noticed for Brick's abs. I was sure they were photo shopped, there was just no possible way a fifteen-year-old boy could be _that _ripped. And let me tell you, they were so freaking-

"Hey, Bea? What do you make of seeing if there's any news on the telly? About the thing, I guess?" Mitch said halfway through an éclair. The sugary cream and chocolate were smeared comically all over his face. How can he remember to have an accent and what a 'telly' is but he wouldn't be able to tell you who his own mother was even if he was looking dead at her? That's how amnesia is, I guess. Anyways, his words snapped me out of my pleasant reminiscence and back to planet earth.

"Ughh, yeah, sure. Turn it on," I said. The place was pretty out of the way, kind of like one of the little shops you see off the highway that you stop at when you're on a road trip and about to piss yourself. There weren't many cars coming through, and if somebody is robbing your pastry shop they aren't going to settle down to watch T.V., so I doubted we would be found suspicious.

He stepped away from the counter with glass thing that is used to display the product. I thought about what my mom would say if she knew my dinner consisted of stolen shortcakes, brownies, and crème brûlée. She'd probably give me that look that says 'you-know-better-than-that-and-I-am-highly-disappointed-in-you', and you know the typical mass-junk consumption lecture.

As he went for the remote, I looked around. The place had seen better times, even if it's quiche were to die for. I sealed up a coffee to go for Charlie, which he insisted on getting, and took in the water stains on the ceiling, the scuffed black-and-white tile, the frayed red booths, and the iron rod bar stools with faded and stained leather upholstery. I felt a pang of guilt at the fact that we were stealing from such an already financially compromised place, but that's the way it is. Survival of the fittest.

His sneaks squeaked as he lazily crossed the over to the old box-looking T.V. He reached on to the top of it where the remote lay and switched it on and surfed the channels. Large, plastic smiles and atrocious acting filled my line of sight. The artificiality of it all made me want to vomit, but I guess that would defeat the purpose of coming here, wouldn't it? He flipped through with a cool, slightly fatigued fix. I felt for him, none of us had slept much of late. Except Brick, of course. He stopped on the sports channel. For some reason women's professional volleyball was on in the middle night, which suggests some sick people do the programming around here.

Female Swedes and Spaniards were having it out and it looked like the Swedes were winning. I decided to ask Mitch a question while I calculated in my head what the Spaniards redemption play might be.

"Hey Mitch, who do you think's going to win, Sweden or Spain? Because Sweden has the upper hand so far, but if Spain-" I didn't finish when I realized that Mitch could hardly care less about the score. At the same time, I figured out why women's volleyball was on in the middle of the night. I snatched the remote from his clasp and turned.

"What was that for?" He cried indignantly. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Because those pants are very, very cheap." I say and watched with mild satisfaction as he blushes madly. Once again, he understands a dirty joke but doesn't know when his birthday is.

I flipped until I finally found CNN. A woman by the name of Ming Yin was on the screen with a very serious face. She was a pretty Asian woman -in case the name wasn't a dead give away- wearing a red pantsuit with a just a _little _too much makeup on.

Unfortunately, Ming Yin made up in reporting what she lacked in her taste of make up artists.

"Tonight's top story for tonight is what is being referred to as the _Attack on Parliament_," She said with the words 'Attack on Parliament' running across the bottom of the screen.

"On Monday, as it is well known by now, the Parliament building was reduced to shambles during a strange type of rampage. Witnesses say that two men dressed as a cowboy and a clown rode through Parliament on a large purple and red horse of an undetermined breed and the surrounding area causing millions in damage. Thirty were injured and five dead, including 19-year-old Cambridge student Lynn Fields. All five deceased were killed in a car explosion caused when the horse trampled a car with 30-year-old Alexander Watson inside, who miraculously escaped with minor injuries."

"Strangely, the security camera signal was tampered with, so there's no official video of what happened besides a glimpse caught by a store camera as they tore through. Unfortunately, said video had to much static to be made out, even by expert analysts. Four students from the Cornelius Wilmington Summer Political Institute went missing during the explosion:

-Brick Jones, 15-year-old son of MP Raymond Jones, CEO of the Institute and the Cornelius Wilmington Trading Center.

-Mitchell Morrison, 14-year-old student

And suspected accomplices:

-Charles Topherton VII, 15-year-old Australian citizen and son of MP John Topherton, grandson of Lord Charles Topherton VI

-And a15-year-old American girl known simply as B. Merangue,

The accomplices were seen fleeing the scene of the crime on a _stolen _motorcycle," She finished with thinly veiled contempt. So the media is definitely not on our side.

"But perhaps the oddest part of this story is that, even though the Houses were fairly crowded today and the students were very well supervised up until the mayhem started, nobody saw the boys ride in on a horse and the parents and relatives of the teens have all claimed to have no idea where any of them may have gotten a horse, especially such a strange one. One little girl claimed that she saw not a horse but a demon-" But I shut off the television. Both me and Mitch sat quietly for a moment, mulling over what we'd just seen. After about ten minutes Mitch spoke up.

"Bea, di-did we do all that?" Mitch asked, for the first time I met him his voice sounded shaky and uncertain in contrast to it's usual loud boisterousness.

I sighed, "_Y'all _didn't do it, that damned horse did," I say, sinking into a worn bar stool. As I sank in I saw the austere black wall clock, which looked somewhat out of place in such an airy place. It told me we had over stayed our welcome.

"Come on, we need to get going," I say, grabbing Mitch's arm and Charlie's coffee. Somehow, it stayed pretty hot.

**Day 5**

**Part 1**

**BrPOV**

Blackness. Emptiness. Far off voices and sounds. No recollection of time or space. Wandering futilely to a place you'll never reach. That's how it felt to be stuck in limbo. That is, until I woke up with my face dangerously close to a sheep's hindquarters. He –don't ask me how I know- gave me a strange look, like he was wondering what the heck I was doing here.

"Baa," He said to me, chewing on straw, maybe?

"I don't know what I'm doing here either, mate," I finished; my head feeling like it was being beat in with bricks. Ha, bricks.

"Brick, are you up?" I heard a familiar voice say. A very welcome sound indeed.

"Charlie?" I muttered, my head swimming.

"Oi, B.! Brick's up!" Charlie exclaimed loudly, bouncing from foot to foot in excitement.

"Charlie, please you'll alert the whole train. Now what-" She stopped. Well, as my vision came back I didn't know who she was. Who any of these people were, for that matter. I looked and saw a brown haired girl and a boy with no hair. They were both creepily familiar though.

"Who are you people?" I say, as I reach up and scratch my head and then yank back my hand, "What the hell happened to my bloody hair!" I say, realizing it was down to my shoulder blades. The boy moved closer.

"Bri-" I scooted away.

"No, you get the hell away from me," I say, furious that my hair had been cut.

"Brick, please! It's me, Charlie! I'm wearing a bald cap, see?" He said as he pulled his forehead back a bit to reveal little tufts of dirty blonde hair. Now I believe I did recognize his mischievous little eyes.

"Charlie!" I said before giving him a _very _manly hug.

"Charlie, what happened to my hair?" I said, having pulled a short, black lock from my head.

"We had to disguise you after the thing with the horse. We're kind of on the run right now, right B.?" He paused and looked at the brown haired girl, "B?" He said looking at her, which made me look over at her. I vaguely remember a B., the name in my head being loaded with emotions. But it didn't match up, because the picture in my head was a cherry, and this girl did not make me think of a cherry.

She turned her head to us, and I saw her eyes were wide and searching, like she was hysterically looking for something. Her eyes were the strangest shade of pink, which made me think of a cherry. She opened her mouth (which was shielded with _very _red lips, I might add) and spoke in a shaky voice.

"Ch-Charlie, di-did you see that?" She asked, stuttering in fear. Fear of what, exactly?

"No, I didn't see anything. What did you see?" He said slowly, carefully.

"Is it bright in her, or is it just me?" She asked, looking really shaken up. This is really starting to bother me, and I don't even know this girl.

"B., what's wrong?" Charlie said, moving over to her slowly. She snapped her head over to us, and it felt like I was just slapped with a textbook of memories.

It was just a small, miniscule flash, but I saw it. If I had blinked I would have missed it. Right there, right on her scalp was a little spot of very red hair. I automatically moved over towards her.

She swallowed, "Never mind, it was obviously nothing," She said shaking her head as if in disbelief.

"It's obviously not nothing for you to freak out like that," I said, sitting directly in front of her. She shook her head.

"B., we won't know unless you tell us," I said. For some reason I was starting to get really, really frustrated, but I managed to keep my voice even. Then I remembered why.

"It's just that…well…I thought that, when I woke up, I saw something strange in my eyes. They were kind of red, almost like…um…" She trailed off nervously.

"Lasers?" Charlie finished, suppressing a smirk. Remember what I said about him being an ass? I turned around and gave him a sufficient fist to the arm.

"You're right, I'm being ridiculous" She said, stiffening. Great, know she thinks we're mocking her.

"B.-" I started, but she cut me off.

"Well, I'm delusional, nothing you've got to apologize for. Now, back to reality, shall we?" She said, standing up.

"Right now, I'm going to go wake up Mitch. Brick, I want you and Charlie on recon. We need to know exactly when and where this train is going to stop. I managed to snatch a blueprint of the train from the train station office. We'll figure out together the best route for ya'll to go and an emergency route in case we need to make a quick getaway or if I need to come get you." She said.

"In the meantime, Charlie, give Brick a debriefing. He needs to know what's going on. Now, where the heck is Mitch?" She said, as Charlie pointed to a spot that was almost completely covered in hay and droppings. Poor guy, he always seems to get himself into unsanitary situations.

She got there astonishingly without stepping on any ewes. She slapped Mitch across the face, hard. My guess was that she had lost all patience earlier. I guess it wasn't funny, but that didn't stop me and Charlie from rolling around on the floor laughing. It certainly didn't stop B. from telling us to shut the heck up before we completely gave ourselves away.

There was a manger (yeah, I know, what the devil is a manger doing on a wool train?) off in a corner that I noticed and showed to B., our feet crunching annoyingly in the straw. She smiled and said that we could use it as a makeshift table to examine the blueprint, which she produced from her pocket.

And so began the long-term plan, Operation: Info.

**CPOV**

After about five minutes I finally finished catching Brick up on the events of the past four days, with a few exclamations of, ''He doesn't know _anything_?', 'She did _what _to his hair?', 'In _Wal-Mart_?', 'The video confessional sounds like a good idea', and 'Quit whining, that bag was ugly anyways,'.

"Are you guys done?" B. called from the War Room (the corner of the room where the manger was sitting turned upside down).

"Yes, Commander B.," I said striking a salute at her. Bea scoffed at me.

"Hmm, I kind of like the sound of that. Anyways, Privates, get your butts over here. We have conversing to do," She said with her hands on her hips. You know, if anybody else were to call me a low-ranking military officer, I'd be offended.

We walked over. She handed Brick the blueprints and he spread it out over the table.

"Alright, in right and lefts I want a detailed description of your trail, pronto. Mitch, here," She said, pulling a pen and a piece of paper from her pocket and holding it out for Mitch to take. He did. Because when B. tells you to do something, you don't ask questions, you just do it.

"I also got this from the station office. Write down every thing they say. I'll be talking, so I'll need somebody to know _exactly _what's going on. I'm talking MapQuest accuracy, Mitch. Now guys, start talking." She said, leaning against the wall after shooing a nosy sheep out the way and crossing her arms over her chest. It's not difficult to see why somebody would think her to be the brains of the operation.

**Twenty Minutes Later**

**BrPOV**

"So Shaw, got any plans for Selsey tomorrow?" asked a rather gruff, short, stocky man. He wore a faded blue jacket with a white stripe on it and a pair of beat up blue jeans with a dirty brown beanie to match. The absolute picture of the kind of man you'd think to be working on a train carrying livestock.

" 'Course I do. Their names are whiskey and gentleman's club," the supposed Shaw finished as him and Beanie shared a perverted laugh. I shushed Charlie as he made a disgusted noise. _So the train's headed to Selsey then. Hmm, this maybe our ticket out of the country, granted we can-_

_CLUNK._

My thoughts froze instantly. I stood stock still and my breath stuck halfway through my wind pipe. _That bloody idiot_. Charlie had just tripped over a stupid pipe. Charlie managed to trip over a pipe on a train full of _sheep_. He froze like a deer caught in the headlights. We both knew that if we heard it –we were perilously located behind an overturned barrel with wooly remnants caught in little cracks along the inside- they might have too. And judging from the looks on their faces, they most certainly did.

"Pork, did you hear that?" asked the tall, lanky, bearded Shaw. He tucked his greasy hair behind his ears, possibly to hear better. With ears _that_ big, I doubt there's much he'd miss.

"Yeah, some kind of strange clunking noise," he said with his thick cockney.

"Pork, be a mate and go check it out," Shaw responded, his eyes fixated on the tracks.

"But-"

"That wasn't a question," Shaw said. Pork begrudgingly obeyed, muttering something about arsewipes as he walked towards the door. Charlie and I sat stock still, silently praying he wouldn't come our way. My hands were sweating and my heart was beating so loudly I was sure we were caught.

_One step, two steps, three steps…_

Sweat trickled down my temple and Charlie swallowed somewhere next to me. _And B. wouldn't even be warned…_

"_BAAA! BAAAAAA!" _Came out of nowhere, right as Pork was upon us. _What the…?_

"What the-" And then he said something Mum made me promise never to say in life. The oaf clomped away to the sheep train. _Oh no! B. and Mitch!_

Charlie looked at me and I nodded. It was Plan R time (B. has so many back-up plans that she had to start using double letters, like Plan AZ).

"_Poooorrrrk_" Charlie did his best ghost impersonation. You can guess whose idea Plan R was. I can't understand why B. agreed to Plan R. Oh, wait, I remember. She didn't think we'd actually need it.

"Who-who's there?" Pork said slowly, peering around in the dark.

"_Pooooooooorrrrrrrk!_" The spirit said frantically. I bit my hand to keep from laughing.

"Show y'self!" He said, probably close to wetting himself by now.

"_POOOOOOOORRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!_" the spirit shouted. _Charlie, don't over do it…_

"AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!" the man ran to the front, scared out of his mind. That was our cue to scramble to the sheep place. So clumsily, and noisily, we ran through the emergency shortcut, the sound of Shaw chewing Pork out ringing in our ears.

Now, why didn't we take the shortcut to begin with? Well, the path cuts through the storage car where all the already sheared wool laid in barrels upon barrels. Because it was so dangerous –and some of us have a blaringly obvious lack of stealth- we agreed to use it as a last-chance resort, and we were currently in the middle of a last-chance resort situation.

I ended up almost dragging Charlie with me because he kept falling over barrels. For some reason I'm seeing a lot better in the dark lately, which is why I could tell that guy had pissed himself. I shrugged it off, seeing as there were things at the moment that called for my full attention, but I couldn't help but notice that my muscle surges, changes in eyesight, and *ahem* intensifying of my problem had started when I jumped off the horse.

I was so deep in thought that I had forgotten I had been running and we crashed through the doorway. I finally saw an advantage to medium-length hair. Less straw to pick out of it later.

"Umm, guys? We need to leave. Like, now." Charlie exclaimed having picked himself up off the floor. As if to make his point, Shaw howled some curses not far away, probably in the wool car. Which is bad because, while their lack of coordination might buy us time, it wasn't going to be long before they got here.

"Yeah, quick-smart. Except, how do we get out without being seen," I said. Everybody turned to B., who looked like she was thinking. Roughly three seconds later she snapped her fingers, her face lighting up with the makings of an idea.

"I got it! Plan FU!" she said, beaming. Plan what?

"Plan what?" Mitch said, confused. Then again, Mitch is always confused. Charlie snickered.

"What?" B. asked Charlie.

"Nothing,"

"Tell me!"

"It's just that, well… FU? It sounds like-" but I cut Charlie off before B. destroyed his internal organs.

"So what's Plan FU?" I asked. Actually, now that I said it, it did sound kind of funny. Ha, FU.

"Are we going to shoot them the bird?" Charlie started, but a with a dangerous look from B. stopped him short.

"While you were gone I devised twelve more plans. Plan FU involves you two," she pointed to Charlie and me, "taking this piece of metal and prying open the lock on that door over there, which I discovered after a little looking around. Mitch will blockade the door. Charlie and I will hold the door open while Brick and Mitch jump first, since they're the prime suspects and are in more danger if caught. Charlie jumps after ya'll and I'll go last and make sure all of you guys get through," she finished with a sense of finality.

"Where did this plan come from?" Charlie asked.

"Originally, it was a back-up plan,"

"For what?"

"In case somebody was stupid enough to execute Plan R," she said, shaking her head. Me and Charlie flushed simultaneously.

"Honestly, I'm not in love with this plan," I told B. Any kind of plan where B. could end up getting left behind was not a good plan in my book.

"Look, I was the one with the stupid train hopping idea anyways. This is _my _fault, and I refuse to let anybody go down for something _I _decided to do. So if they turns anybody in to Scotland Yard, it's going to be me," she said, her voice steady.

"But-"

"Mitch, why isn't that door stopped up by now? And you two know what you're supposed to be doing. Hop to it, boys! We've got about five minutes before they come barreling through that door," she said. I sighed. As I told you before, when B. makes up her mind all attempts against it are rendered null and void. I was just walking over to the door while Charlie carried the metal thing in one hand and the camera in the other (which, in hindsight, probably wasn't smart to have lying around in a car full of animals), absolutely mellow, when something very strange happened to me. Something that hasn't happened to me in years.

**BPOV**

After giving everybody the run-down on Plan FU -which probably wasn't the best name for it, looking back- and assigning positions, I went to go see if I could help Mitch with the barricade when I heard a roar. It reminded me of those Hulk cartoons that came on when I was little.

It was just like the sound The Hulk made when he transformed for the first time.

"Brick, what the- AHHHHHHHHHH!" Charlie screamed, his voice getting fainter. Mitch and I turned on our heels just in time to see Brick throw Charlie through the large sliding door out the train and onto the grass outside. Even though the train was still moving, I could see quite plainly that Charlie was not.

"Dude, why did you do that?" Mitch screamed. There were muffled voices right outside the door.

When Brick turned around, I caught sight of somebody that was not Brick in the slightest. The tendons stood out in his neck and his face was contorted in pure, unadulterated anger. He seemed to have grown to twice his size, but that might have just been my imagination. A horrible sneer had implanted itself upon Brick's face. But the worst part was his eyes.

His red eyes are usually warm, like the red glow of the cinders on a dying fire. But these eyes, if you could call them that, were more like mini infernos. There was such hate burning there that both me and Mitch took roughly five steps back. Even as the Brick-thing came towards us its movements were different. More delayed, like he had a ton of weight on his back.

Then the door bust open. Mitch moved out the way in the nick of time because he was ducking around Mitch. I was thrown to the floor skidding through the straw. The sheep were going crazy by now. They all got together in the corner furthest from Brick and the gaping door. _Smart sheep_, I thought.

Rough hands grabbed for my ankle. I kicked and screamed. I bit a sweaty hand that clapped over my mouth. I saw Mitch run over to me.

"Mitch, no! Jump, damn it, jump!" I squealed, hardly recognizing my own voice.

"No!" he yelled.

Without thinking, I shot him.

I watched as he flew off the train and onto the ground below. Well, I didn't really know what I did. I put out my hand trying to urge him to leave and something pink flew from my fingers. I watched helplessly as he went sailing through the air. I heard a faint thud as Mitch crashed to the Earth. _Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, please don't be-_

But my entire thoughts ceased as somebody from behind grabbed me and hoisted me up.

Assuming I was about to be taken by a goon I kicked and screamed, getting a nice shot to the gut. Before I knew it, I was flying through the crisp morning air.

**What's going on? What's wrong with Brick? What's up with the pink stuff? Is Mitch dead? Where are they? How will they evade capture? What was B.'s big idea? Some maybe answered, some may not. I plan on doing a video confessional every five chapters, so that's what's up next. I need reviews, people! I know you hate me for being a slow updater, but please don't make me have to panhandle for comments! **

**Thank you to 1000GreenSun (as always) and fearlessgurl101 for going back and reviewing EVERY chapter. You guys make me squeal with glee, quite literally.**

**Yours Truly,**

**ATH (new sig)**


	6. The SellOut

**A/N: Okay, so I changed my mind about the whole vid confessional thing, but if you think I still should post a chapter on it feel free to include it in a review or PM me. Alright, that's about it. If anybody has any ideas, I would like to hear them. I have that weird feeling in my gut that I might have a Writer's Block in a hot second. Everybody seems to be happy Brick is awake, so I guess that last chapter wasn't **_**complete **_**crap. And now, the real fun can begin *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*. LOL **** (Just like the song!) FYI: TPPOV= Third Person Point Of View**

**Day 7**

**Part 2:**

**The Sell Out**

**}~{**

**2155 hours**

**BPOV**

My head is throbbing. I have a weird and not all together pleasant taste in my mouth. My scalp is itchy from all the twigs and leaves caught in my hair. Every single inch of me is sore from tip to toe. The low, repetitive hum of crickets fills my ears. I warily peel my eyes open, the lids of them are eerily sticky. I open my eyes, being met initially with total darkness. After blinking a few times I realized it wasn't completely dark in the space beyond my head. Something orange and glowing flickered somewhere close to where I lay. I just sit and stare for a moment.

The glowing thing is mesmerizing. The way it captures the shadows. Turning branches into the evil monsters lurking just beyond your little nightlight's scope and the beautiful creatures that fill the pages of fairytales and lore. Like the world's scariest and yet most intriguing artist.

How unpredictable it is, as well! It never stays the same color. As if it's lashing out at itself. Orange, yellow, red, yellow again, orange…

Never had fire seemed to fascinate me so. Its curious dips and arbitrary spikes held far more interest to me than even the most radical thesis paper science had to offer could. I sat up, and, do to my shift in position and a particularly high flare, she caught sight of a figure hunched over the capricious little flame.

The flicker of the ever changing flame lit threw shadows and lit lines in a face paler than usual. Conflicting emotions warred on the aforementioned's normally cheery façade. Unnaturally black hair shaggy from lack of proper care hung limply in his face. It seemed so devoid in contrast to it's perpetual abundance of life that shown there. The glow and aura that made you want to know and be positively acknowledged by this person was thrown to the wind. It's like looking at a hairline crack in an ancient and beautiful mask or a momentary time lapse in an otherwise profound film.

Whatever this is, there's something horribly, horribly wrong here. I speak for the first time since I woke.

"Brick?" I whisper, almost scared to wake him from his melancholy. His head snaps to attention. I gasp at the look in him when he turned to look at me. There are unshed tears there, swimming in his ember eyes.

His crimson irises were almost smothered in an emotion that closely resembled fear. I swallowed, stood, and sat down next to him, plucking up my courage. He turns to look at me. Brick is watching me closely, as if searching my face for something. What that could be I do not presume to know.

"Aren't you scared?" he finally says after an uncomfortable spans of time. He tilts his head to the side and frowns as if _I'm _the one acting strangely.

"Scared of what?" I say. I have no idea what he's talking about.

"You-you saw me on the train, didn't you?" he says, his voice freezing up on him like every word of the question held a special dread for him. I also noticed that his words were kind of slurred and distorted and I figured that his tongue was probably doing a real number on him right now. Suddenly the morning assaults my brain and I remember the horror of it all.

The tendons. The fury. The hellish eyes. Just the thought of it made my pulse race. It all eerily resembled a horror movie I saw recently called _The Rite _with Anthony Hopkins, the Hannibal Lecter guy. Safe to say, I carried the cross necklace my dad bought for me a year prior on my chest every day for at least a month later.

It just occurred to me that Brick could quite possibly be possessed. For all my scientific and mathematical reason you're subject to find me blessing my food come time to eat.

However, my fleeting sense of danger must have shown on my face because he drew away from me, shutting his eyes and dropping his head into his hands. I'd never seen him look so small. It seemed this venture was bringing out the worst in us all, some more than others. I bend down and pulled his hands from his face, reaching around and forcing him to look into my eyes.

"If you think I'm afraid of you you'll be sorely disappointed. I've seen much scarier things than that at my Aunt Eleanor's nursing home," I say. It's total BS but I doubt that he really wants to know how much the whole thing scares the heck out of me.

He offers a mirthless chuckle, "I'm sure," he responds, albeit grudgingly. We both know he's not buying it, but it doesn't make it the wrong thing to say either.

"You know you'll have to explain the situation to me at some point," I say to him now that I'm sure he isn't too upset. He opens his mouth to respond but I stop him.

"Right now a nod or shake will suffice, seeing as you've got a fat tongue at the moment," I order and he nod. There's a groan and I recall the fact that me and Brick are not the only people here. I get to my feet and move across to the opposite end of the campfire.

I find Mitch and Charlie lying on the ground, Charlie starting to wake up and Mitch, once again, being the only person in the group with possible brain injury. All I could do was hope to high heaven that somehow being turned into a human projectile would knock the good sense back into his half-empty brain.

"Hey, Charlie, can you hear me?" I ask the baldy-looking boy. He groans.

"No," he says to me. My eyebrows furrow and I see his smirk.

"Glad to know you're just fine," I say and move over to Mr. Blue Man laying parallel to him on the opposite side of the small fire. I snapped my fingers, slapped him, kicked his leg a few times but he didn't wake up. I checked and felt a pulse.

"Okay, so he isn't dead," I say, standing back up and dusting my self off.

"Yet, he isn't dead yet," Charlie says.

"Charlie?"

"Yes, Commander?"

"Quit being a smart-ass," I say, marveling how he can be so aware after being thrown from an object moving at about fifty miles per hour. All the nausea was building up in my head from the brief exposure to carbon monoxide, constant moving, and lack of sleep.

Looking around at the three of us sitting around the fire, the air tense with unspoken fear and confusion I saw what the five days had done to our persons. Tired, scratched up, sad faces surrounded the steadily growing fire. While I watch Brick battle his inner demons -maybe literally- and Charlie try to maintain some semblance of good humor a thought comes to me.

"Brick, I want you to hold up a finger for everyday we've been knocked out," I ask the silent boy. He holds up two fingers. My eyes bulge and Charlie face-palms himself, dragging his hand down his face taking his bottom lip with him.

"Are you serious?" I ask him and he raises a brow at me with a solemn face.

"We must have slept so long because we are all so tired," Charlie says. Thoroughly exhausted would be better, I guess, but I agree.

"Brick, how long have we been here?" I ask Brick. He suddenly gets up. I wonder what he's up to until he comes back with a stick and starts writing in the dirt.

_1 day._

"You moved all of us here by yourself?" Charlie asks astonished.

_No._

"Somebody helped you?" I ask.

_Yes._

"Who?" I asked, puzzled.

_Mitch._

This information has the both of us are taken aback, "He woke up?" we both ask him. 

_Yes_

"What happened?" I ask.

_He threw up. Then passed back out._

"So that's what that gnarly smell is. Ughh, I think I may be next," Charlie groaned out, clutching his bald head.

_Dude, gross._

"If you think you might vomit I suggest you move away from us. My head hurts enough as it is and I don't think I'll survive the smell of regurgitated sweets," I say referring to the last thing we ate.

"Speaking of food-"

"No. All of us need time for our stomachs to calm down. I suggest we wait a few hours before we find food. Besides, we don't even know where we are,"

_Hopefully close to Selsey._

"Why?" I ask Brick.

_Because it's a port city._

"Oh my god! That means-"

_We are possibly en route to our ticket to Western Europe._

"And how the heck are we going to leave this country and get into another one without passports? Since, in case you guys haven't noticed, England is an _island_. It kind of makes skipping out a heck of a lot harder," Charlie said.

_It's not a bad idea though. We're just kids; they won't expect us to know enough to be able to depart from the U.K. _

"Well then, there's no time to waste. Charlie, grab Mitch and kill the fire. Brick, help carry Mitch and keep your mouth shut. Operation Info is officially a go," I say as I stand up, already plotting our next move.

}~{

**Chester, Cheshire, England, UK**

**Black Woods**

**Hal's Lumber Mill**

**Basement Area**

**Scotland Yard Detainment Unit**

**June 21****st****, 2011**

**Day 8**

**2250 hours**

**TPPOV**

Clever, but clearly tasteless_, he thought to himself, regarding the dark grey cement walls around him with a stony expression. When Detective Rossi entered he had been reflecting on the DU's somewhat conspicuously inconspicuous placement in the middle of a forest in Chester. He had been told the walls were soundly proof but hardly believed it. Some people will tell teenage girls anything._

"_Ms. McNeill?" a somewhat clear voice rang with somewhat raspy undertones. _Chronic smoker, but she hides it well_, he thought to himself, _but not well enough_, he concluded, smothering a knowing smirk. It was tiring to pretend that he didn't know every single little tiny nuance about every single human thing in the damn building, not to mention having to fleece giving a whit about what flavor lip glow -or whatever the filth was called, he himself was more of a lip polish sort of guy- was 'in'. _

_He made a mental note to torch the place as soon as he got the opportunity. He'd be doing all creatures that could see within a hundred-mile radius a favor._

"_Yes," he responded, thrilled at the sound of the chirpy little voice that escaped him. He hadn't inhabited anybody in such a long while that it was like revisiting a favored childhood landmark in adulthood._

"_Detective Rossi, head of SY CRU. Otherwise known as Scotland Yard Criminal Relations Unit," she said, taking a seat at one of the only four fixtures in the tiny, damp, mold-tainted room- a metal table, two straight back metal chairs, and a dilapidated old light bulb hanging from the ceiling, a hair's breadth from crashing to the table in a shower of sparks. _I wonder…_, he started to think to himself. It would be totally unnecessary, but then again he had a knack for causing pointless mischief. _

"_My job is to talk with people like yourself to help catch the bad guys. Now, Ms. McNeill, let's go over the basics." She said, taking out a clipboard from seemingly nowhere. Perhaps Rebecca Diane Rossi had some magic of her own._

_She flipped through the papers on the board, her brown eyes blankly scanning mechanically, like one of those abominable Windows contraptions that people in the eighties' had the nerve to refer to as 'computers'. Her light brown eyes, darker skin and wild black hair couldn't have stood out more in the bleak little storage closet-like dungeon if they tried. He'd known what it was like to be a black woman; he'd had to take to one sometime in the nineteenth century. He'd be the first to tell you, it ain't fun._

"_So you're full name is Emily Ann McNeill, daughter of Rook McNeill, sole proprietor of McNeill Paper Manufacturing Company. You are fifteen years old, your DOB is March 12__th__, 1996, and you have information that could be of some use to us?" Rossi said, at this point looking up at him. Or perhaps her._

"_Well I'd not come here and waste your time as well as mine." He said flippantly, checking his cuticles for maybe the fortieth time today as he saw teenage girls do regularly. Why he was doing this, he hadn't the foggiest. His cuticles did not look any different to him now than they did five minutes ago, but who was he to argue with the logic of a female adolescent?_

"_Alright then," Rossi said, crumpling up her already crumpled black and blue pantsuit as she sat back in the chair crossing her arms over her chest. Loose tendrils of thick black curls threatened to part from her hastily made bun. "What do you have to say for yourself, lass?" she said, quirking an arched black brow._

"_Well, as you already know, I was in a relationship with one of the prime suspects in the investigation-"_

"_Was? As in past tense?" Rossi interrupted. If there was one thing he truly despised, it was when someone interrupted him. In any other situation he would have mad quick work of her lower intestines, but for the moment he would just have to contain himself._

_Breathing deeply through his nose to steady himself and make sure his response would not be overly surly, he opened his eyes. When he's angry staying in character becomes exceedingly difficult, and he was sure his eyes were a disturbing mixture of yellow and blue at the moment. If she noticed it, he would simply mark it off as a drug-related issue or something of the sort._

"_Yes, was. As I was saying-"_

"_Why?" she said innocently. It was all he could do to not to slowly and painfully scrape that look off her face. He grit his teeth and continued in an obviously strained voice._

"_Detective Rossi, how does this pertain to the matter at hand?" he asked. A moment later it occurred to him that may not have been the way a female teenage girl might have put that question exactly._

"_It doesn't, I'd just like to know," she said, making it clear she didn't plan on letting this go._

"_We just kind of…drifted apart. It was best for both of us to just move on," he said, satisfied with his answer. Rossi seemed to be as well, and so she let him continue to weave his treacherous tale._

"_Well, before we broke up, about eight months ago, he mentioned having joined a group," he said whilst choking back a chuckle of glee. Even if all his plans revolved around those three insufferable children he still derived an immense amount of pleasure from creating untruths, especially ones that can have such horrid aftereffects. _

"_What kind of group?" Rossi asked, her attention having been expectantly aroused. If there was anything he knew, it was people, and he'd done his research on this particular specimen. She was, in a way, practice._

_He took a deep breath, as if to steady himself before pushing ahead, "He-he said that they had a job, a really important one,"_

"_Like…" she said. She wasn't exactly eating out of his hand like he wanted but she was definitely already warmed up to what he was insinuating._

"_Like they had really important things to do," he said, deciding to be as obstinate as he possibly could as payback of her earlier uncouth._

"_Like…" she said, surprisingly patient. _

"_Maybe like a cult?" he says smug grin working its way onto her face._

"_A cult?" she said, her dark eyebrows rising a quarter-inch on her forehead._

"_Yeah, like, he always used to go batty talking about destroying establishments and the like," he said. In truth, he hadn't give what he was going to say much thought when he formulated the whole scheme but he was in close relations with the father of lies himself and so he figured he wouldn't have too much trouble just winging it._

"_So are you saying that Jones isn't the only person involved in this?" she asked. She was at the edge of her seat by now, nervously twiddling her long, thin, coffee-colored fingers. So he'd finally gotten the woman riled up. It didn't take long to accomplish pushing people's buttons, you just have to know how to play on people's fear and it was obvious that the idea that there was a whole underground network of pernicious anarchists terrified Rossi._

"_From what he told me, I don't even think he was the brains of the operation," he said, fidgeting in the itchy grey feminine sweats. What anyone would find remotely comfortable about track suits was beyond him._

"_So you're saying that he's a pawn?"_

"_That's _exactly _what I'm saying," he finished, leaning back in his chair. He already knew that, even if Rossi didn't believe him, this was the only lead they'd received, and there was no doubt that a possible conspiracy was sure to keep the fire fueled. _

"_Why haven't you come forward with this information earlier?" she asked, rubbing her face. So he had at least been convincing enough to get her to question him._

_He squirmed in the hard, cold seat. "I didn't really understand much about it at the time, but now I wish I had said something. I could have stopped it…" he said, actually making his voice crack in shammed emotion._

_Rossi clutched his hand in a way that was, what he supposed, was to be comforting, rubbing her clear-nailed fingers over his chipped pink ones. "Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have known what he was going to do." She said with a slightly remorseful smile, as if she hardly believed her own words._

_Rossi was doing what she had been trained to do, it was painfully obvious that getting him to talk came before his actual mental well-being. He couldn't help but admire that, he so adored talking to people with severely interpersonal traits. Not that he wasn't going to disembowel her later. He had to get _some _kind of fun out of this whole experience. _

_Pulling her hand back and clearing her throat, the Detective continued, "So, Ms. McNeill, can you tell me anything about this organization?" she said, whipping out a notepad from wherever she had magiked the clipboard from._

"_I really don't remember much…" he said, his sharp mind buzzing a whirring like a over-loaded copy machine._

"_Anything, like a group or person's name or a plan or something of the sort?" she asked, her hazel eyes probing deeply into his faux blue ones._

"_Umm, yeah, I think he might have mentioned a group name," he said with a contemplative look on his face._

"_And what would that be?" she asked, her eyes having traveled back down to the clean, white legal pad, her blue pen at the ready. _

_He allowed a considerably malicious grin to slink his way onto his face, distorting his pretty female image as Rossi's gaze stayed locked with the blue and red margins. _

"_The Blossom Project,"_

**}~{**

**Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America**

**Midtown, Metro-Area**

**GBI/FBI Head Quarters**

**Questioning Room #8**

**June 22****nd****, 2011**

**Day 9**

**0919 hours**

**TPPOV**

_Calla was sorely confused. _

_She couldn't understand for the life of her why in the world anyone would want to wake her up in the middle of the night (well, she hadn't _really _been sleeping, but hypothetically she was so hypothetically they had woken her from a beautiful dream) and flown her all the way to Georgia from her parents _very _comfortable lake house in Pasadena. _

_She slept through the plain ride (which was very nice, by the way) and woke up when the plain touched down. She frustratedly tried to pop her ears, angry at herself for leaving her Hubba Bubba gum at home. Some might consider the deliciously chewy bubblegum confection childish, but Calla would simply tell them that, until they could afford the 99-cent candy she could hardly care less about their opinion on the matter._

_At the moment she was staring up fearfully at the imposing building before her. She thought back on all the secretive crap that had been going on within the last twelve hours, how her _parents _weren't even allowed to tag along with her. Actually, when she thought about it, it probably wasn't the best choice they possibly could have made, sending their teenage daughter off with a bunch of random guys who had yet to state their business to a state at least 2,000 miles away and being barred from even knowing when she was to return, but the thought was fleeting. Sadly._

_But back into the moment, after having been driven from Hartsfield-Jackson in a hushed frenzy to this place that she hadn't bothered to learn the name of, she was pushed through the doors into the building, taking three elevator rides, two flights of stairs, an escalator, and a thing that looked freakishly similar to a conveyor belt to this room with the metal table, talking wall, and uncomfortable chairs for no obvious reason(at least not to her, anyways)._

_So, in short, Callie was very, very confused._

_And that was _before _Detective Wheeler-Gregg showed up._

"_Calla Grey Arnolds?" the dark-skinned bulky man called with a fair-skinned red-haired man in tow. The white guy was fidgety and his intense gaze made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was his leering carrot-top orange eyebrows or his ungainly footing._

"_That would be me." She twisted around in the hard back chair momentarily putting a pause on her fidgeting. She didn't know what the heck she was there for but she couldn't remember having done anything illegal. Lately. Well, they couldn't possibly know about…_

"_Calla-"_

"_Umm, do I need, like, a lawyer or something before you guys start asking me questions?" she asked him, fuzzily remembering watching some show called Order & Law with B. briefly before she got bored and went to go see what Pauly D and The Sich (as she so affectionately nicknamed his nickname) were up to._

_He laughs as if she was joking, which she was most certainly not, "No, we just want to ask you a few questions Ca-" but she cuts him off._

"_You dragged me from my cool villa in the golden country to this hot stankhole of a city, so I would prefer you call me _Ms. _Arnolds. You have to _earn _Calla," she said with the cool demeanor she shrugged on when she was dealing with an upstart at school. She may go to a school with a bunch of kids that were a lot smarter than her but the hell if she would let _anybody _run her over. She would be shown respect even if she didn't follow the conversation half of the time._

"_Our apologies Ms. Arnolds. Now, we brought you here to discuss your friend 'B.'s' possible involvement with a malicious organization," he said in a somewhat patronizing voice. His tubby dark –almost black- fingers reached forward to clasp together on the metal table. The strange man beside him was still fidgeting. She wondered if he was in crack withdrawal or something, the way he looked around as if invisible demons were creeping upon them._

"_Who's he?" she asked, nodding her head towards the crackhead in a tie to his left._

"_Oh, Usherwood? He's new." He said real easily. Too easily._

"_Who're you?" she asked raising her newly arched medium-brown brow._

"_Me? I'm Detective Wheeler-Gregg." He said fingering the lapel of his water-resistant jacket. _What in the devil would possess someone to wear a coat when cars are literally _dying_ in the middle of street from _heat flashes_?_, she thought skeptically. Something was _definitely _wrong here._

"_Mr. Wheeler-Gregg, I know B. She would _so _kill herself before even considering becoming a terrorist. I don't know what's up with that shit in England but I don't think B. had anything to with it. I mean, I'm her best friend, she would tell me if she was up to stuff like that, wouldn't she?" her voice faltered. It had never come to mind that B. might have been doing potentially evil things and not tell her. I mean, really, how well did she know her friend?_

_She had helped those crazy guys blow up that Parliament place so she must have known something, shouldn't she? And even if she didn't, what reason would she have to help them and endanger her own life and future? Did they play B. and take advantage of her sense of right and wrong? Did she truly believe they weren't doing anything wrong? B. was no fool, even smarter than Taneeka. If B. thought them to be innocent then should she just trust that her friend knows what's best? And if those boys really are innocent, what then? Nobody would believe that they didn't do it. And anyways, how do frame somebody like that? How is it even possible? What in the hell was going on? This sudden and confusing onslaught made her head throb, but she pressed through it for B.'s sake._

_Gripping her head, and then releasing it she came to a decision. Those evil (cute, but evil) boys had somehow tricked her friend into thinking that they hadn't been wrong and B.'s intention were entirely kind-hearted, and, somewhere, they were doing horrible, horrible things to her. Problem with this theory was that B. was the best judge of character there is and it couldn't have been completely random that there was a horse involved and B. was _the _horse whisperer. _

_Ignoring this, Calla was enraged. Instead of sitting here trying to turn her friend into Osama Bin Laden they should be out saving the red-head from them! So she sat back in her seat, crossed her arms over her chest, dug her heels into the floor and built up her resolve to tell these 'detectives' nothing at all. She would be fierce and not show any emotion at all, point blank._

**Two Minutes Later**

_She was sobbing her brains out all over the damned table. A now almost empty box of Kleenex sat to her right while Wheeler-Gregg rubbed her back completely unprepared as to what he should be doing. He looked over to Usherwood to find him looking at Calla as if she was wearing a blanket of thistles. _

_When Wheeler-Gregg thought about it, he couldn't even remember what had led up to the girl completely falling apart and choking out stuff like his pathetic loser of a brother did when he went to that ridiculously well-paid therapist of his. _

"_A-a-a-and she-she co-could be dead somewhere and you-you would be here! Why aren't you going to-to find her, you-you-you-" and she would go back to heaving on the table. This interrogation wasn't going as expected at all._

**}~{**

**A/N: Yeah so I've written, rewritten, lost, found, trashed, written, rinsed, and repeated this whole thing a couple times and I **_**still **_**don't like it. I don't know it feels too short. Some crazy shiz happened to my account and I got locked out of it. Again. So now I'm sitting here on this retarded school computer at 6:00 in the afternoon (not morning, why the heck would I be at school at 6:00 in the morning?) and I can't post this thing because it's **_**blocked**_**. **

**Like, what the hell? You can still look up 'dirty' photos on Google images so what exactly are they blocking here, hmm? Me from you, that's what's getting blocked. God, I can't even get on **_**Tumblr**_** here. Stupid. **

**Okay so I'm home now and I'm fed so I wont do another crazy rant. For now.**

**Shout outs to: Blossom Brick, fearlessgurl101, AToxicLullaby, InfinityPlus1, NAWHdinosaurs**

**Special Shout outs to: 1000GreenSun (who's been reviewing since forever) and Sorry I Just Did (who's another one of the beautiful people who went back and reviewed the whole dang story)**

**Thank all of you for reading and bearing with me in my extremely insane school life (I'm in a touring group and I just found out I'm Student Council Prez) and reading my little story!**

**LOL XOXO,**

**ATH**


	7. The Informant

**A/N: So my flash drive walked off and left as it happens to do. It's always something. Thanks be to 1000GreenSun for the congrats, I appreciate it. Also, mindful folks, for those of you who might notice, Charlie is going to say a few things that may be leaning towards the British side but that's because he's been going back in forth for a lot of his life. And, before I forget, Brick is INTENTIONALLY OOC, and you'll find out why soon enough. **

****EXTREMELY IMPORTANT INFO****

**WARNING, THIS CHAPTER DOES HAVE MILD FEMININE CONTENT, JUST SO YOU KNOW. HAVE A NICE DAY, HERE'S A TELETUBBIE FOR YOUR COOPERATION ~(:)(0)=8**

**Day 7**

**Part 3:**

**The Informant**

**}~{**

**2210 hours**

**CPOV**

Yeah, so here's a kicker people; it's is _way _more difficult to break into a pastry shop then a library full of pricey electronic equipment. B. made me carry Mitch's fat arse all the way to the goddamn place. And then some old dude with a shotgun nearly blew my leg off when the slumbering git somehow managed to trip a security sensor and send us all running for cover. We had to hide out until B., the genius here, got the greatest idea to walk up behind the crusty old dude and whack him over the head with her sneaker, brown hair flying. So now Brick is tucking the geezer in at his house next-door and B. is typing away on the computer.

And, worst of all, I lost my bald cap somewhere and I think the stupid alley cat that's been following us ate it.

I walk outside and look up at the fading white-ish sign, _Rookery Lane Lending Library_.

I walked back in to find Brick passed out in a book that B. probably assigned him to and Mitch lying on the dark spaceship themed carpet where I left him. As small as it was, it was a good library. There were wall-to-wall books, a couple fake sand wood tables with matching chairs, twelve relatively new computers, about three circulation desks, and a separate glass-walled room where some of the rarer books were stored along with a microfisher.

It was funny though, I could have sworn I hadn't heard him come in. Brick, that is.

I felt bad for him, though. He probably hasn't slept much if at all in the last two days, even less that the rest of us. It was only matter of time before Brick passed out. I walked over to B. to see her brain hard at work.

"So, you know where we are yet?" I ask, pulling a seat up next to her and facing the monitor. I asked her again, and no response.

"B.!" I shout, snapping my fingers in front of her face.

"Shh!" she hisses. I roll my eyes.

"B.?"

"Uh-huh,"

"Do you know where we are?" I ask. This time slowly and enunciating carefully. She looked at me briefly before turning sharply to look at the computer screen again.

"We're in Pagham," she said carefully.

"Okay, great. How are far are we from Selsey?"

"Only about half an hour."

"Okay" I answer, thrilled

"In a car." Okay, I deflate slightly.

"Oh. How long would that be?"

"Only about 11 miles. The short way." Eleven miles with an unconscious teenager and another mentally-unstable one at an estimated speed of about zero miles an hour on a few hours of sleep. I will never complain about a pop quiz again in my life.

"Yeah, that pretty much fits the bill for our luck lately." I say but she isn't finished yet.

"But we might not need to go to Selsey after all."

"How so?"

"As I said before, we are in Pagham, Bognor Regis which is about a mile from Pagham Harbour. And Pagham Harbour opens directly into the English Channel."

"Brilliant!" I exclaim, barely holding in my favorite victory dance.

"This right here is what we would call 'hitting the jackpot'." She says smartly with a smile on her face. All we needed to do now was learn how to operate a boat in within five minutes and we were home free.

"What's with all the noise?" Brick groans muffled from his homey spot facedown in _Mahoney's Theory of Disturbances in the Cranium's Hippocampus_.

"We've got about a mile of walking before we blow this dump. You know anything about sailing?" I ask cheerfully.

"Wha…?" he asked, his voice trailing off.

"Didn't I tell you not to talk?" B. quipped from her seat.

He nods.

"Then don't." she said, turning all her attention back to where it was. She gave me a meaningful looked and her fingers turned to fly over the black and white keyboard. She is one of those people that don't even look at the keyboard when they type.

I turned to go do her silent command and explained the situation to a dejected-looking Brick. That's the thing about her. It doesn't matter who you are, if you don't learn how to follow her directions when she gives them you're just going to end up getting your feelings hurt. I've probably said something like that before, but it's just that crazy.

A couple minutes later we were all sort of sitting around (except for Mitch, he was still lying on the floor) fighting off sleep ferociously. Brick gave up and caved in a few minutes before then. I raided the librarian's stash of junk food. At this rate I was probably going to break out or something from all the grease like my mum never fails to tell me I will.

Thinking about my parents' shrewd nature made me miss them, in a strange sort of way. I can just imagine my father's heartbreak at the inconceivable shame I had brought upon his family. My mother must be bedridden with grief and my dad is probably working non-stop trying to clean up my mess, as is the usual. I sigh. I can't remember the last time I've said 'I Love You' to either of my parents, and now there's a good chance I never will.

"Retrograde Amnesia." B.'s voice pierces my loose thought patterns.

"Huh?" I ask, rubbing my face.

"Mitch has Retrograde Amnesia." She says, turning around to sit with the front of the chair facing her.

"Is that a good or bad thing?" I'm just so worn I don't know what to make of anything. I can't understand for the life of me how B. stays on high alert. Its like she injects herself with liquidized Duracell batteries. Note to self, steal whatever she's on.

"Well, it could be a good thing, but it could also be a bad thing. Retrograde Amnesia is basically when you forget what happened around the incident but you remember odd things from a further length of time, kind of like short-term memory loss." She finishes as we both turn to look at Mitch, the human carpet. I guess B.'s losing some her virtue as well, because neither of us stoops to pick him up.

"Do you think that his memory will resurface?"

"Possibly. If it does chances are it won't come back all at once and he'll definitely get major migraines." She responds in that clinical way she has. I sigh again. This is all getting to be a bit much. I was ready for all this to be over but it didn't look like that was going to be happening anytime soon. We had no doubt months of EuroTravel to look forward to, and we'd only been gone for about a week. It was amazing to me how today last week the most I had to worry about was whether or not I had packed enough underwear for my trip. Amazing how complicated life can get in such a small amount of time.

And then she surprises me.

"Do you miss your parents, Charlie?" she asked me, staring out a window. I must be really losing it, I certainly didn't see her cross to the Kids' Section. _Ugghh_, I mutter rubbing my face again, because my hair is way to wild too even attempt to run my fingers through it the way Brick does his. Maybe, if I keep doing that, I can chaff off the black crescents no doubt hanging beneath me eyes.

"You could say that. Me and my mum and dad, we never really… you know…_connected_, like saw eye to eye. We didn't really argue, we just kind of never really did much of anything together, you know what I mean?" I didn't really want to tell her.

It's not the pity that bothers me –a _lot _of good can come from girls pitying you- but the gratitude. Gratitude to God, or Allah, or Jesus or genes, or whatever for giving them parents that actually gives a shit about your feelings, or state of mental health.

Parents that come to Honors' Day. Parents that come to Thanksgiving luncheons. Parents that come to soccer cups. Parents that go on vacation for fun, not good PR. Parents that go to the mall. Parents that go to the park. Dads that take you to to rugby games just because they can. Mums that straighten up your tie before a dinner because they want to, not obligated in the slightest.

And it was there. The gratitude. But I'd rather gratitude than understanding, because it's pretty awful to think that there are a lot more kids in the world than you with 'loving' parents that care a lot more about their Benz than they do about their own flesh and blood. No, I'd much rather see gratitude.

"I feel bad for 'em. My mom's no doubt hysterical and my dad's probably worrying the hell out of the police. Or maybe it's the other way around?" she said as we both sank in our chairs. I didn't bother going on a computer myself, all I'd see was my dad's everlasting annoyance at me and my mum's callous disregard. Yeah, sure, I miss my parents. Don't know why, but I guess I do.

I clapped my hands together and began, "Well I'm going get some shut eye, and you need some too so wake me up in two hours. It's getting late and we have to leave before dawn." I say, stretching and yawning. B. cracked the joints in her lower back.

"I'll just take the whole night," she says as I settle myself onto a particularly plush orange moon chair, but I'm out cold before I can even think to object.

**}~{**

**Day 8**

**0905 hours**

**BPOV**

I woke up to the sound of a disturbing chorus of snores. I rubbed face, it felt raw and marred with sleep marks from the table. I only had God to thank that nobody decided to break in here or something like we did. I started to stand up and automatically wish I had super-speed. Or maybe I do, I don't even know anymore. Not after that thing on the train. I'd like to dismiss it as all in my head but that would be dismissing that it didn't almost kill Mitch. Then again, maybe it had. Poor Mitch, he'd probably be brain-dead by the time this was all over. If he isn't already.

But, more important thing are calling my attention at this time. I needed to wake up Charlie so they wouldn't think somebody had snatched me over night, or worse, I took off. I groaned, this was really, really not a good time. Not a good time at all, not to mention I can be a bit moody sometimes. That's probably part of the reason I snapped at Brick last night. While I'm gone I'll probably need to get some pain meds too.

"Charlie?"

"Charlie?"

"CHARLIE!" Shoot, I forgot he was a heavy sleeper. I _so _don't want to bring this to Brick but I guess I don't really have much of a choice. Fortunately, Brick is the exact opposite.

"Bri-"

"Kent, please. Tell dad I'm not going to school today, I feel dreadful."

"Brick, sweetie, my name is B." I say, trying to be very nice, seeing as that won't be much of an option for very long. His eyes shot open and he began babbling out apologies. I would have told him to be quiet but he'd have better luck raising the dead. I gave a soft laugh, any harder and I'd have stomach contortions.

"Brick, I especially hate to wake you but I'm going to the store to pick up a few…things," I say, not looking at his face.

"What-" and then he cut himself off. I looked up and saw that his nostrils had flared at which he put a hand over his nose as if I'd just kicked him in the face.

"What the bloody hell is that god-awful smell?" he was clutching his face.

"What are you talking about, I don't…" and then I trailed off realizing he was talking about me. Great, now he's got the instincts of a canine. I was so horrified my face probably lost color instead of gaining it.

"Okay, so I'll be back. If something happens, do the right thing." I say, then race out the unlocked backed door before he could catch on.

**BrPOV**

I just kind of watched the door that she'd left through for a second, feeling like I'd missed something glaringly obvious, but that isn't an emotion I haven't come by a lot lately. Shaking my head, I decided to bide my time before she was back and everybody was up and it was time to go again.

This morning was the first in a couple that my head wasn't screaming bloody murder. I looked up at the clock. We'd need to be out of here in about an hour, because thirty minutes after that the librarians would come to open the place up. I looked through some books. Went on the internet. Played with loose strings on the carpet.

Anything to keep me from thinking about everything, like my episode on the train, something that apparently was even worse than I'd originally thought. B.'s uneasiness that seemed to have less to do with me and more to do with something that happened after I'd left the car.

I turned to look at the blue-haired boy that was beginning to blend in with the carpet in the children's section. I sighed. All of our hopes and dreams were riding on the slimmest chance that Mitch knew something that the rest of the world over did not. Who actually caused the 'Burning of Parliament'.

A groan. "Morning Red Herring," Charlie announces brightly.

"Blue Bell," I say. You could say it's dumb to call him that since his eye are gray, but it still gets under his skin. He flips me the finger as he takes a seat next me at the imitation sandalwood table.

"Where's Strawberry Shortcake?" he asked.

At the store.

"Why?"

I had no idea.

"Well, I-"

"_Shh._" I whispered harshly, slapping my palm over his mouth. Thankfully he didn't do anything immature, like lick my hand. There it was again. A weird tinkling noise, suspiciously close to-

"_Do be quiet, Adeline. Today's a Furlough in the county, so you needn't go to school. We'll go home right after I lock up._"

keys.

I yanked Charlie under the table by the scruff of his shirt. All we had to do was wait until the lady was satisfied with the place, seeing as she was on the other side of the room. She was going to no doubt padlock the doors again but that's just a matter of going back and picking the damned thing again. No biggie, the whole situation would be resolved before B. got back from wherever she was and if worse worst, the place was swarmed with windows. I had it all mapped it out, but one small detail slipped my mind.

"Who the bloody hell are you!" she shouts. I clap my hands over my sensitive ears. Crap, we forgot Mitch. Again. You know, it would probably be for the best if Mitch just stayed awake for a while, otherwise he's going to run the risk of actually being left.

Unfortunately, Mitch couldn't answer because he was in a vegetative state. I'm working on my vocabulary so I can become one of those people that come out of prison outrageously intelligent but actually were like that before but people overlooked it because they were criminals. Maybe not the most uplifting thing to think about.

Charlie and I looked on in horror as the woman nudged his cheek with the toe of a worn brown penny loafer, which was reddened and covered in sleep-marks from the fuzzy blue carpet. His cheek, not the penny loafer. I couldn't think of a thing to do right then, seeing as we couldn't go back and drag Mitch away from the woman and the little girl would definitely scream if i took off my sneaker and knocked the lady out with it.

God, if B. were she would know exactly what to do. I tried tot think like her but all I ended up doing was pissing myself off, and that seems like an especially bad thing lately. All I could think of was her flipping him over with those hideous penny loafers and recognizing his no doubt highly publicized face and it being all over.

On the bright side the old man hadn't shown up yet, so that meant that the situation could still be savaged.

**BPOV**

You would not believe the shit I had to go through to get a freaking _pad_. Like come _on , _people. This was going to be the most miserable next four days of my life, and I can't even begin to imagine how I was going to work this out. Did I mention my traveling companions are all _male_? Not for the first time I wondered about having the thing turned off and just adopting some less-fortunate orphans or something. Like, seriously, biological children are _so _not worth this.

After running all the way to the library from a McDonald's bathroom I came across quite a sight to behold. Through the gaping windows (which, when you think about all the technology in there probably wasn't the brightest thing to install) I saw a woman with a neat bun and tweed pant suit sitting in a chair, a little girl in a yellow sundress with a white headband licking happily away on what looked like a green Blowpop or a really moldy chocolate bar.

Brick's black hood was pulled low over his eyes as he said to the lady whom I now realized was trying to worm her way out of the plastic fastenings around her wrists and Charlie, now blonde, was sweet-talking the little girl who clearly found him thoroughly entertaining.

Wondering whether I should stay outside or break the cheap-as-hell lock on the door, I decided to go with the latter. As I neared the doors, trying to figure out how this place hadn't been cleaned out already, I began to gather snippets of their conversation.

"So you see, Linda, we just want to talk with you," Brick spoke with his voice smoothed over with that layer of cool that makes you want to do whatever he tells you to, which, when you think about it, is probably a very lethal talent to have.

She rolled her patent leather-brown eyes at Brick.

"Don't take me for a fool, child. I watch the news, I know what you are," she said with a razor-like edge to her nasally voice that might have made me laugh had I not been so pissed. Who was she, to pass judgements on good, fifteen-year old kids? Whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? Fuming, I strode toward the door, which the ignorant and crude woman hadn't bothered to close.

They all turned to look at me. Brick looked relieved, Charlie amused, Linda annoyed, Adeline uncaring, and Mitch just drooled some more. Definitely the most mixed reaction I'd ever received. Adeline quickly redirected her attention to Charlie, who was entertaining her with the 'Vegemite' story he'd tried on me. Brick took a step towards me and I thanked God for portable toilets.

"The gang's all here," the woman brightened sarcastically. I gave Brick a not-so-subtle look, not caring if she saw it.

"Brick, give me one good reason why I shouldn't knock her out right now?" I asked, already cracking my knuckles.

"I'll give you two. A, there's an eight year old sitting roughly five yards away and would probably either scream or be emotionally scarred for life, and B, she might have something we have don't have very much of. Information," he pleaded with me, red eyes back to their fuzzy glow now.

"Yeah, yeah there plenty of ways to get information. As for the girl, she'll live," I say rearing back to punch her in the face. He rolls his eyes.

"B..." he says, giving me the don't-even-think-about-it look.

"Fine, talk." I sigh in a resigned way, directing my command at Linda. Any patience or mercy I may have had ran with being referred to as an object. I sat stomach first in a plastic blue chair while Brick stood next to me, built arms folded in front of his chest. If looks could kill, that lady would have fried me on the spot.

"What do you want to know?" I was starting to get the feeling we were losing valuable cooperation time with this one, so I made the decision to be brief.

"How many psychologists do you know specialize in retrograde amnesia?"

**A/N: So this chapter's been a while in coming. As per ususal. Thanks to: wendilin, an Anonymous Georgian (in case you're wondering, that's my hometown and residence, dragonroses, and LetoSai and another special thanks to 1000GreenSun for always reviewing. If it weren't for you guys I would be broken-hearted. I'm talking sad, kinda emo, strictly Ellen Hopkins and Sylvia Plath broken-hearted. **

**Until We Meet Again, **

**ATH**


	8. The Panacea and the Associates

**A/N: I like this chapter. **

**Day 8**

**Part 2:**

**The Panacea and The Associates**

**}~{**

**0917 hours**

**CPOV**

"How many psychologists do you know specialize in retrograde amnesia?"

Well, B., don't beat around the bush.

"Come again," Linda said in a way that suggested that she had heard B. loud and clear.

"Ma'am I don't stutter. I hate to be rude, but I'm fresh out of patience," I watched the two females have a stare off over Adeline's head.

"Adeline?"

"Mhmm?" the little brown haired girl was looking at me with hazel eyes flecked with brown, snacking on a Blowpop I'd snuck her from Linda's stash.

"Is Linda your mum?"

"I don't know Linda but that lady's my Mummy." I couldn't help but laugh at that.

"How old are you, Adeline?" I put my elbows on the table and leaned forward so I could hear what they were saying better.

"Well, I'm seven, _Charlie_." Hmm, a smartaleck. Well, two can play that game.

"What school do you go to?"

"Church Way Academy Child Care Center," she said, steadily licking away at her technicolor lollipop.

"Where's that?"

She gave me the kind of look I usually get from B., "Up on _Church Way_,"

"Adeline, I-"

"_Greece_? You _must _be joking," I heard Linda say.

"Yeah, we'll go if we have to." B. answered. I excused myself and walked over to them.

"What's this about Greece?" I ask B. since, you know, she's the one in charge here.

"Linda knows somebody in Greece that can help us out. His name is..." she turned Linda.

"Dr. Orestes Tokatladis, Master of Psychology," Linda put in.

"Right. Anyways, he owes Linda big time for some irrelevant reason so he's going to help us when we get there."  
>"Now don't put words in my mouth, I never said I'd ask him to help you. Seeing as, you're the one indebted to me." I felt a threat coming on but Brick handled the situation accordingly.<p>

"_Please_, Linda. We have nobody else to turn to, and we're teenage fugitives, for Christ's sakes! Just give us a chance to clear our names," Man, his voice is so smooth sometimes it's like he's a whole different person.

She sighed, and a bit dramatically, if you ask me. "All bloody right, fine. But if I find you hurt Tokatladis in any way, I'll tell the police e_verything_ I know, I mean it." Linda finished with a certain unfriendly something in her voice.

Brick gave B. a pointed look that clearly meant _back off_.

"So that's it, then? We're just going to hop borders until we get to Somewhere, Greece?" I asked. This whole plan was beyond me, really.

"Karditsa, Karditsa, Greece."

"Yeah, there." Linda was really beginning to grate on my nerves. B. flew to the computer and typed and clicked for a few moments. All of us held our breathes, too scared to ask her what exactly she was looking for. Suddenly she sighed in relief and the tense air of the room seemed to disappear instantly.

"Karditsa is mainland, so we don't have to worry about navigating the Balkans." she said. After that kind of statement, there's pretty much little else to do but agree. And then we all just sat there for a moment, nobody really knowing what to do next. The only sound was Adeline steadily licking away at that godforsaken lollipop. B., of course, was the first person to rise to action.

She rose to walk outside, Brick stopped her.

"What're you doing?" he asked gently. Nothing good can come from being rough with her.

"I have a favor to call in." she said, just as gently shrugging him off. No point in getting Brick going, either.

"What kind of favor?" Brick asks.

"What, you don't think my parents would just send me halfway across the world alone, do you? Speaking of which, does anybody have enough change for a payphone?"

And, naturally, Adeline was the only person who did.

**0927 hours**

**BPOV**

"_Hey, *grunt* B.! What do you need?" _

"Sweetheart, what are you doin'?"

"_Th- *smack* There's been a bit of a brawl 'ere 'cause of something Luck said at Marnie's Pub."_

"I thought you were in Band Camp?"

"_Well, not for long, eh?" _I could practically hear the grin in his voice.

"Good, you'll be free then."

"_Why?"_

"You know how to sail a boat, right?"

"_Yeah-, oh, wait a mum," _there were many loud, very violent sounds in the phone receiver.

"'_Course I do, lemme guess, your getting out of the dear old damned? Ya face is plastered all over the place, B."_

"You guessed right, can you do it? We just need a ride across the Channel."

He sighed sharply, _"Alright, but you know you've got a package deal." _Sigh, I'd been afraid of that.

"Fine, Pagham Harbour at eight?"

"_Sharp." _Click. I turn and walk out of the blue-accented glass booth.

"Who was that?"

"A friend of mine named Garrett Brovsky. He's sort of a jack-of-all-trades, so if he's around and I need something I can't ask anybody else for, he's the first person I turn to. Our moms were co-managers of an outsourced Tech Help center in Bangladesh." Brick nodded. He probably didn't know about the other side of 'the package deal'.

"So, I don't mean to listen in on your conversation, but who else was he talking about when he said 'package deal'?" he looked uncomfortable. The part that bothered me was not that he mildly invaded my privacy, but that he could do so between ten feet and a three-inch wall of glass.

"I was afraid you'd ask that. Olana Rossi, they've been friends almost as long as we have. Rossi's mother and Garrett's father are both in the Criminal Relations Unit. Rossi's very intelligent and cunning and has _excellent _relations. She's very skilled and a serious asset in a mission,"

"But you don't sound happy to have her on the team." Very perceptive of you, Brick.

"Really, I like her fine, it's just that... Olana has a very corruptible habit of getting side-tracked and side-tracking others. If she isn't sitting behind a surveillance camera somewhere, she can be very dangerous in a mission, in more ways than one." That didn't sound too revealing, did it?

A smirk grows on Brick's face. I guess it was.

"So Olana's a flirt?" I think this is about the best humor I've seen him in for a while. I grimace in response.

"We're meeting him in Pagham Harbour at eight, so everybody needs to pee and brush their teeth before five. Oh God, I hope he calls Adrian, I lost his number." I smacked my forehead. Even though Garrett would probably contact him anyways, it had been stupid of me not to ask.

"Adrian?"

"He's our hack." I said flippantly.

"B., nowhere in your instruction manual does it say you come with your own spy squad." his frustration was edged with amusement.

"Of course I do. We're the Associates. I'm the Leader, Garret's the Meat, Olana's the Agent, and Adrian is the Wire. We used to mess around a lot when we were younger but after our relations started to get deeper, so did our skill levels.

"Although, you know who else I heard is pretty hardcore?" I added thoughtfully.

"Who?" Brick asked, his curiosity mildly piqued.

"Adrian's American cousin -Adrian's French, natively- umm, I think her name was BC? Something like that. She's kind of into the gang thing, though. Anyways, like I said, eight, i better go catch the rest of them up. We no longer have a need to keep the woman and little girl, so we'll just dump and keep tabs on 'em." I turned to walk away, but Brick's voice stopped me.

"B., wait. There's something I haven't told...well...anybody," deep breath, "Ok, so I have a bit of a problem. Well, more of a severe disorder, really. It's called IED, Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Well, that's the diagnosis. My doctor says I'm more of an extreme case," Wow, Brick, _really _bad timing. He looked down, caught between being scared and relieved. I struggled trying to bring myself to shock, or surprise, or even mild skepticism, but I couldn't do it.

I'd heard of IED before, a friend of mine did a project on it, and nowhere on the list of symptoms did it include developing superhuman capabilities. And, from the look on Brick's face, he was thinking the same thing. Then again, the incident with Mitch and myself on the train didn't exactly abide by the laws of nature.

"Who all knows about your IED?" I ask, it was the only thing I could think of that would be remotely productive anyways.

"Just Mitch and everybody else in Ms. Myrtle's 1st grade class."

I rose an eyebrow.

"Just a little hissyfit, Mitch wouldn't let me use his red crayons. I got worked up and sort of, umm, threw through a wall." he flushed slightly.

"Muscular first grader, hmm?" Brick looked mortified but I found it kind of funny.

"You could say that."

"Well, if we're confessing here, it wasn't all peaches and cream after you and Charlie left the train, either. Okay, so right after you jumped out the guys we were running from ran into the car and I didn't think we there was enough time for both me and Mitch to get out, and, since Mitch is a prime suspect and I'm more of an accessory, I told Mitch to jump and I'd let them haul me into Scotland Yard or something.

"But Mitch was stubborn and the men were going to get us both, so I panicked. I reached to try to shove him out of the car but he was too far away to touch and I just knew that we were both going to end up in a cell somewhere. But then there was this weird flash of a color that looked dangerously close to pink and suddenly he was rolling around on the ground outside. And then one of them picked me up and I punched him in his stomach hard enough for him to accidentally throw me off the train.

"But... the weird thing is... I could have sworn the pink thing flashed off of me. Like, from _my _hands. That's never happened before, and I'd like to say that it was nothing but... I saw something that looked a lot like burn marks on the back of Mitch's shirt. _Burn marks_, Brick. I could have _killed _him." I hadn't voiced any of that out loud before, and it had was having a very powerful effect on me. I sunk into a nearby bench and let my face do the same with my hands.

Brick sat down next to me. I looked up to see a rueful smile on his face as he closed his eyes and seemed to inhale the cool, damp air. There was nothing he could possibly say to brighten my mood right then.

"So you're Jekyll, and I'm Hyde." Well, I was wrong, because that brought a smile to my face.

"Red Hyde."

"Pink Jekyll." Yeah, so now we're both laughing. Hard. And then Brick fell off the bench, which made me laugh even harder. Brick looked mad, which made it even _funnier_. And then he couldn't stay angry and he started laughing from the weeds where he sat. It was an unnerving kind of laughter, the kind that happens during a cross between winning the lottery and entering the early phases of mental degeneration.

You can see how it must've creeped Charlie out when he came across us rolling around in the not completely traffic-free road, appearing no doubt suicidal.

**}~{**

**Karditsa, Thessaly, Greece**

**Karditsomagoula**

**Hospital of Karditsomagoula**

**West Wing**

**Office of Dr. Orestes Tokatladis, M.D., PhD**

**June 21st, 2011**

**Day 8**

**1025 hours**

**TPPOV**

**(for the benefit of the reader, the following conversations will be translated into English)**

"Father." The dark-haired boy entered the ornately decorated room, his greeting being more of an announcement of his arrival than an actual request for permission. He slumped into one of the wooden chairs in front of the wooden desk, the seats padded with memory foam encased in a durable forest green colored leather, all upholstery with mahogany origins.

"Nikkos." the fair-haired older man did not bother to look up from his desk as he addressed the apprentice in front of him. His fine ball-point pin never ceased its endless dance across the paper. There were no painting, no acquired knick-knacks to give the room a false personality. Just a a deep green chaise lounge, a desk, two chairs, a computer, a few cabinets, a few drawers, an office phone, and a single, solitary image of a smiling dark-haired woman, and a smiling dark-haired baby.

"Have you spoken with your mother yet?" the fair-haired man looked up beneath a pair of patent steel, lined bifocals to expose dark brown eyes, hazy with age and wear, his bearded mouth framing the words that left them. The dark-haired boy looked up as well, tussled brown hair giving way to large, pale greenish-gray eyes.

"Umm, yes. She called me." the brown, bespectacled eyes waited expectantly at their meeting with the somewhat trepidatious Laurel green ones.

"Well, what did she say?" the fair-haired man spoke, his agitation becoming apparent. The Laurel green-eyed boy feigned innocence.

"She said she wants to know if you want Moussaka or Pastitsio for dinner, she's stopping by that place you like," The dark brown eyes narrowed at him, but the younger boy was all wide eyes.

"Nikkos, you know that is not what I mean. Now what did she _really _say, Nikkos?" His voice had hardened, the boy was trying the older, well-built man's nerves.

"That is what she said. Well, not _all _of what she said, but she did say that." The fair-haired man was angry, the boy made it blatantly obvious that he was not telling his father all. The reason why he was doing this remained to be seen. The sharp silence seemed to bounce off the walls, despite the room's terrible acoustics.

"Nikkos-" he began angrily, but the rather dated black office phone on his desk rang. He checked the caller-ID, he recognized the number. With one last frustrated glare at the dark-haired boy, he picked up the phone.

"Linda?" he asked, his voice slipping into that bored tone it ascertained whenever he spoke on the phone with a person -besides his wife- and it was not business related. Not exasperated, just bored, like anything that didn't beg for his immediate attention didn't really beg for his attention at all.

The dark-haired boy watched suspiciously as the fair-haired man's eyebrow raised at whoever was speaking to him. And then his lip curled in a not altogether pleasant way, positioning his blunted angular features in an odd light.

His surprisingly straightforward English rang out painfully clear through the room.

"Yes, Linda, we will be ready for them. Why, me and Nikkos of course." The dark-haired boy seemed to visibly disagree with that statement, but he seemed to deem it a bad time to voice this opinion.

Silence.

"Now, why would Ms. Merangue have an objection to that seeing, as I would be the one aiding a person on the wrong side of Detective Rossi's dayplanner." Now it was the dark-haired boy's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Well, please inform Ms. Merangue that Nikkos very much is on the inside. He wouldn't tell a soul, would you Nikkos?" The dark-haired boy looked very confused as to whether or not he should answer.

"He confirms my statement. Oh? Well put her on!" The fair-haired man's excitement was met with a disturbed sense of foreboding by the darker.

"We would be more than happy to assist. Naturally. Alright then," he put a large, mildly hairy hand to the end of the phone, and whispers "_it's for you, Nikkos_." This whole conversation put Nikkos in a bad mood, but that wasn't exactly a difficult thing to accomplish. He glared at the phone, already resenting whomever would be on the other side.

"Yes," he made his exasperation clear, his accent much thicker than the fair-haired man's. How dare this woman demand to speak with as if she knew him? Meanwhile, the fair-haired man stood back, already very amused with the conversation in which he was not a part at the moment. He tried to gauge 'Ms. Merangue's' reaction to the dark-haired boy's startling rudeness.

By the six different emotions the boy passed through after her supposed response, he assumed she'd thrown him.

"Excuse me?"

…

"How old are you?"

…

"I asked you first."

…

"You're a teenager!"

…

"What does that have to with anything?"

…

"That's an offensive question."

…

"Okay, yes I can keep my mouth shut! Goodbye!" he then hung up the phone. The fair-haired man was beside himself, but his face was still rather stony. The dark-haired boy began muttering obscenities under his breath.

When he turned to face the man, the man lifted a brow at him.

"Tell anybody I know about that conversation? They'd probably be bored to death with the sheer idiocy of it!" he exclaimed, collapsing into a chair, the squeak of the chair was the only sound to fill the room. And then the pen began it's smooth dance again.

**}~{**

**Pagham, Bognor Regis, Great Britain, UK**

**Pagham Harbour**

**Harbour Road**

**The Outskirts of the City**

**Dock 9**

**Day 8**

**2000 hours, exactly**

**BrPOV**

As we walk in, another group of people walk in at exactly the same time as us. B. insisted that we should be there at eight exactly, but I guess I should have known better than to doubt the punctuality of anybody that B. chooses to associate herself with. I see, in the front of them, a meaty brunette guy. He was pretty big, taller than Charlie, and Charlie's actually about six feet.

A girl, about the same height as B., walks in behind him. She has her hair in long, thin braids. She has medium brown skin, but that was all I can tell from a distance. They're both dressed in black, the girl has a black baseball hat turned backwards on her head. They both have huge duffel bags, the guy has a dark-colored backpack that looks kind of heavy but it's hanging from one of his fingers.

All of us, as in me, B., Mitch (still sleep), and Charlie, followed the brunette in front of us. I guess they don't like open spaces, because she moved us into the woods where they were headed. We met up right at the edge of the woodsy area, leading off to the boathouses and separate docking lanes. I don't know how I expected them to meet up but they certainly didn't do it in a conventional way.

"Does anyone need to go the loo?" The beefy boy asks once we're in earshot.

"No," B. answers for all of us, "where's Adrian?" she asked shortly.

"Elsewhere. How long's blue boy here been out?" he tilted his head toward Mitch that Charlie was holding behind me, shifting the duffel bag slightly.

"Only about-" And here she was on the brink of a serious mental breakdown. She fell down on the ground, on her stomach, and began to actually _hit _the ground with her fists, growling in a rather intimidating way.

He crouched down to her level and she turned to look at him. He raised an eyebrow at her. She rose up to sit on her bum. She wasn't crying, but she looked like she wanted to.

"B.," I ventured to ask, "what's wrong?" I crept towards her, hoping she wouldn't snap at me.

"Mitch is going to die and it's all my fault." her face was buried in her hands.

"How so?" Charlie that time.

"I forgot, he's been asleep for too long without eating. If he ever wakes up he'll die shortly after from starvation, or dehydration, or _both_. I can't _believe _I forgot something like that. I'm not supposed to forget things like that, things that can be the difference between life and death!" Somehow I was starting to suspect that cared a bit more about how this affected her credibility rather than Mitch's actual possibility of taking a serious dirt nap.

And for that reason I suddenly wanted to blow up on her. Or Beef for looking so unaffected. Or Mitch for just being such a spastic. _Someone_. As I opened my mouth to say something that would probably land me in the morgue before it did France, Beef cut in.

"Anyways, we need to be quick and get a boat. If the bloke dies before then, he's gone anyways. Olana, please pass out the comms and give Beezus her set." The girl, whose braids are black, streaked brown, now that I can see her, with a black cap turned backwards on her head, took the backpack off his arm and opened it, giving everybody some little black things that looked a lot like smooth little stones.

'Olana' passed B. the rest of the pack, or rather sat it down on the round next to her. B. then picked herself up along with the bag as if nothing had just happened and started calling out orders like normal.

"You alright, mate?" Beef asked me. I turned to look at him, I'd finally gotten enough cool back that I could respond in a halfway decent manner.

Blinking, I answered, "Yes, why?" I rubbed my face.

"I don't know, you looked a little freakish there for a mum. Anyways," at this point he was no longer just talking to me, "everybody ready to go?" Everybody nodded yes. He paused as B. got up to come to the front, he followed her, and Olana followed him, brushing up against me in a halfway suspicious way. B. turned around briefly.

"Charlie, drag Mitch with you, take turns with Brick. Oh, and those black things Olana gave you? Put it in your ear, it's a bluetooth walkie talkie. We'll wake Mitch up when we get to the boat. And, Olana?"

"Commander?" drawled a thick voice.

"Leave Brick alone, he's off limits."

"Yes ma'am. And Charlie?"

"_Sigh_. Yes, Oliviera, Charlie is off limits, too."

"Really?"

"Really, Oliana."

" _Sí, en serio__,__Oliana_."

"It's nice to hear you too, Adrian."

**A/N: So, we all know I'm pathetic, right? Okay, awesome. Shoutouts to 1000GreenSun and dragonroses, you guys know I appreciate it. What do you think about Nikkos? It's okay, you don't have to review, just answer it in your head. Although it would be sweet if you did review, but, you know, you don't _have _to. Also, I'd say that reviewing makes me update faster, but I'm not going to lie to you. However, they do inspire me to update at all.**

**Sincerely,**

**She**


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